According to The Pew Forum's latest study, 21% of American atheists believe in God. The story by the Washington Post points out the obvious, that many who call themselves "atheist" don't realize the meaning of the term. Of course, they're several years behind Ray Comfort, who has long said there really aren't any atheists.

Like many studies on religions and/or belief, the study begins from an "objective" viewpoint--they try to avoid using the doctrines or nuances of any faith to gather data. For example, they use the word "tradition" rather than "religion", "denomination", or "cult", since all those terms mean different things to different people in each such tradition.

However, the irony here is that the "unbiased" terms fail to capture the nuances of that which they pretend to describe. Surely, the study's organizers would like to identify me as affiliated "Evangelical Church" tradition. However, I tend to reject the label "Evangelical" because it has been expanded to include many practices and teaching that God abhors, such as seeker-oriented churches and Oneness theology. I also reject that I am part of a "tradition" because whatever traditions I have, they must be nailed to the cross (Col 2:20-23) and done away if they conflict with God's word or distract me from Christ (Matt 15:2)--therefore I regard all my traditions as worthless in comparison with the cross. I could label my self as a "Biblicist" or a "inerrancy-holder" to distinguish myself from other faiths, but I cannot without reservation claim to be a "Evangelical".

The lesson is that any such survey is flawed in measuring anything of consequence for a Christian--oops, for a "Biblicist"--because one cannot determine another's true standing with God by question. There are saved Christians in many groups that claim Christ yet seem to hate him in word or deed (Rev 2:17, Rev 3:21, et al). There is also many tares among the wheat in the churches that seem to us to be "good" (Matt 13:24-30).

We are commanded to harvest the tares and the wheat alike (Matt 9:37-38), and I say a good case can be made for ignoring the surveys during that harvest.

Labels: sociology

Labels: sociology, strangers, street