Barna: Increase in 'Religious Behaviors' May Portend Genuine Change
by Jody Brown
April 12, 2006
(AgapePress) - - While Christian pollster George Barna doesn't yet have hard data to confirm it, he says there is reason to hope that Americans are taking God "more seriously" than they were a decade ago. More than 20 years of studying cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors have given Barna ample opportunities to observe and quantify the spiritual development and religious activity of those who make up the Church in America. By observing such religious behaviors as church attendance, Bible reading, and prayer, the Barna Research Group's research has provided clergy and laity alike insight into how serious Americans are about their faith, their commitment to God, and their involvement in the local church.
The Barna Group is now reporting that it is detecting "significant" increases in religious activity related to five of the seven "core religious behaviors" that the company studies on a regular basis. The researcher himself observes that it is unusual for there to be increases in more than one or two of those behaviors at the same time -- but suggests that with five of the seven showing increases simultaneously, it may indicate a "holistic, lasting commitment to engagement with God and the Christian faith."
So what religious behaviors are showing increased activity? According to Barna, the most prolific jump relates to adults' Bible reading during a typical week, outside of church. Eleven years ago, polls showed Bible readership at just 31 percent -- a 20-year low, says Barna. But a steady increase in the interim -- with a few years of stalled growth along the way -- has brought Bible readership in 2006 to 47 percent. "That's the highest readership level achieved since the 1980s," says the research group.
Church and Sunday school attendance have also picked up, says Barna. Forty-seven percent of adults say they attend worship services in a typical week -- 10 percent higher than in 1996. And almost one in four adults (24 percent) -- as compared with 17 percent ten years ago -- attend a Sunday school class.
Other areas of increased activity, according to Barna, are involvement in small groups during a typical week (23 percent vs. 17 percent a decade ago), and church volunteerism (27 percent) -- the same percentage as 15 years ago after dipping to as low as 20 percent in the meantime.
"The only two religious behaviors which did not reflect significant change were prayer and evangelism," says Barna. Both of those parameters have remained fairly stable over the years, according to the group's tracking data -- 84 percent of adults claimed they had prayed in the last week, and six of ten claimed to have shared their faith in Jesus during the past 12 months with someone whom they knew believed differently.
While George Barna remains optimistic about these latest findings, he cautions about reading too much into them as such indicators often have an "ebb and flow" to them. Still, he says, if over the next couple of years all of these measures stabilize or show slight growth, he would be willing to suggest, with confidence, that America is experiencing genuine and "meaningful" change in people's religious habits.
"Until we have such confirmation, which only comes with time," he says, "we certainly have a reason to hope that Americans are taking God more seriously -- and a motivation for believers to pray more fervently that such a commitment will take root in our culture."
Barna recently released his report "The State of the Church: 2006," which is available on his group's website.
