American Bible Association included that key question in its State of the Bible poll, an annual survey that questions adults 18 and older about their views on reading, studying, and understanding the Bible. The well-known ministry learns every year that a secularized U.S. is growing more ignorant of basic biblical beliefs but the view of a sinful Jesus is a shocking claim far beyond people saying they don’t have time to read the Word.
According to the 2022 survey, a little more than one-third of Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Generation Z believe that Jesus sinned like any other human.
Responding to the survey, author and Christian apologist Dr. Alex McFarland says it's a sign of increasing biblical illiteracy in the U.S.
“We often recast God and even Jesus in terms that we think up,” he says. “That's why it's so vitally important to take what Revelation says about Jesus.”
The sinlessness of Jesus Christ is a fundamental of theology, McFarland points out, because how could a sinful Son of God be the unblemished lamb who bled and died as an atoning sacrifice for sinful mankind.
While the annual ABS survey tracks the decline of biblical literacy, McFarland says it is many self-described Christians who are “biblically illiterate,” too. That observation and warning by McFarland, in fact, is often seen in the ABS polling.
"And often times they may be very sincere and even somewhat complimentary of Jesus,” he says, “but they hold ideas about Jesus that are not compatible with what the Bible says.”
