The seeming conflict between certainty and ambiguity may show that most people see overriding truths behind many religious dogmas, the Pew researchers said.
The researchers also said their results indicate that it’s wrong to assume that Americans can be pigeonholed on the basis of religion. There is a wide diversity of beliefs and behaviors, even among people who say they belong to the same religious group, said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum with a long history of studying faith-related polls.
“Even I was stunned by just how diverse it was,” he said. “The diversity goes all the way down.”
“Most Americans say they are absolutely sure about standards of right and wrong – and are just as sure that no one religion holds an exclusive franchise on the truth.
Overwhelming majorities of Americans say they believe in God (or a “universal spirit”). But substantial majorities from all major religious categories also say they believe their religion is not the only path to eternal life, and that there’s not just one correct version of their faith.”
If this is the case, remembering the problems with poll accuracy, then “most Americans” are NOT Chrisitians.
They might be called “almost-Chrisitians” or people with beliefs containing elements of Chrisitianity, but they cannot be called Christians, regardless of what they chose to call themselves.
And you expect what from poorly catechized pew potatoes? That’s assuming their backsides even hit a pew on any sort of regular basis.
ABC World News had a bit on this last night. Of course, they found some people in the streets who claimed to be Catholic, evangelical, Baptist, protestant, whatever, and simply said religion doesn’t matter. Of course, a whole generation of American Catholics have been left virtually un-catechized, but we already knew that, so I’m sure it was easy for ABC News to find a Catholic who fit their needs.
I would have said that the most revealing aspect of this survey is that most Americans are actually follows of the American Civil Religion, which says: be a good person, nice, don’t offend anyone, put your old clothes in the poor box down at the church, make money and buy lots of stuff. Ok, that last part is application, not creed.
The fallacies in this sort of thing is simply that reality is more complicated than polls. For example, the Catholic Church teaches that all salvation is through Jesus Christ. The Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection are historical facts through which God has entered into history and bought us freedom from sin. The normal route to heaven is to recognize this and convert to Christianity, living one’s life in the Church. HOWEVER, and this where the poll would be invalidated: someone who doesn’t have a real chance at Church membership might be saved in God’s mysterious providence, though they die a Buddhist, Moslem, or even atheist. However, they are saved by God through Christ. So, a Catholic (who knows their Faith) could say that a member of another religion can be saved.
And ABC News will have a field day. All that religious stuff doesn’t really matter. For Christians, we can have a field day planning our evangelical and catechetical initiatives.
If this is the case, remembering the problems with poll accuracy, then “most Americans†are NOT Chrisitians.
Christianity is defined by its creeds. In the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed there is no specific statement of salvation through Christianity as a religion. Salvation/Judgment is from Jesus, but the creeds do not specifically exclude salvation through other religions. So those who are universalist (although not Unitarian!) can indeed be creedal Christians.
Looks like a lot of evangelism opportunities out there. When we get to heaven, is the Lord is going to ask us why there are so many people who aren’t Christians still in our world?
Brian said, “Christianity is defined by its creeds.”
Brian,
Christ defined the essentials of Salvation.
Christ’s statements regarding Salvation are in Scripture.
The Church didn’t find out about the essentials of salvation by studying Scripture. It knew what those essentials were and included those Scriptures which backed up that knowledge.
“The Church didn’t find out about the essentials of salvation by studying Scripture. It knew what those essentials were and included those Scriptures which backed up that knowledge.”
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Please explain what this comment means.