According to the findings of from Dr. George Barna and the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, only 57% of adults believe humans are God's creation, made in His image, fallen, and in need of redemption.
Despite the fact that 70% of those polled identify as Christian, just 30% of adults hold the biblical view that people are born into sin and can only be saved by Jesus Christ.
Meanwhile, one in four adults "strongly agree" that Jesus Christ sinned while on Earth; among notional Christians, who account for roughly half of all churchgoers, more strongly agreed He sinned than strongly disagreed.
Talking about this on American Family Radio's "At The Core" program, Barna said a lot of this has to do with today's narcissistic culture.
"Everything revolves around us, and one of the implications of that is if and when somebody actually opens up the Bible and begins to read it, they read it through their lens; they interpret it through the way that they view the world," he explained.
In the 1970s, research found that 90% of Americans believed in the God of the Bible. Today, that figure is below 50%.
"That's huge," Barna asserted. "We're losing altitude too quickly for comfort."
He said the model we have been using for the past 1,500-1,600 years was developed in a particular cultural context that no longer exists. Acknowledging that he cannot tell people what to do to correct the "complete turnaround," Barna said whatever believers are doing is clearly not working.
"We don't ever want to compromise scripture," Barna noted calling that "a loss from square one."
"We want to be able to take the scriptures, God's truth, and make it real and relevant to people in this day and age without compromising anything but recognizing that the model can change," he said.
