Interesting Statistics on My generation of Christians

Here is one of the blogs that I had wanted to post last week but due to the business of the seminars I was participating in I was unable to write much!

I have been reading the book UnChristian authored by David Kinnaman with research completed by the Barna Group, a very well known and respectable research organization.

The book takes a look at what my generation and a few younger than me really think about Christianity. The findings overwhelmingly point to the fact that many Christians don't practice what they preach.  While looking down on non-Christians, intentionally or not, we are putting on a face of holiness that is false.  We look like hypocrites.  As Biblical Christians with sound doctrine we should hold to a certain view and practice that is contrary to the world.  We preach this daily in our churches and mission fields.  The statistics below will show, though, that many young Christians believe things to be morally acceptable that the Bible explicitly condemns and tells us to abstain from.

This isn't a big surprise, and could be easily written off by Christians who say that we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.  This is the truth that we are all sinners.  But the problem enters in when we condemn non-Christians for doing the same things we do.  Instead of pointing fingers and pretending to be holy, we should be showing how we have failed in our sin to those in similar situations, but how God has saved us and wiped our slate clean to live a new life for Him.The new life we have is a transformed life in relationship with Him.  This research should cause us to take a step back and look at how we as Christians treat non-Christians; as well as evaluate how we are living--as examples of Christ or not.

		Christians 23-41yrs old	Christians 42+yrs old
		Percentage that believe each is morally acceptable
Cohabitation		59%	33%
Gambling		58%	38%
Sexual Thoughts/fantasies about someone		57%	35%
Sex outside of marriage		44%	23%
Using profanity		37%	17%
Getting Drunk		35%	13%
Looking at pictures of nudity or explicit sexual behavior		33%	19%
having an abortion		32%	27%
having a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex		28%	13%
using drugs not prescribed to you		16%	8%
allowing f-word on broadcast television		7%	6%