Evangelical Christians are supposed to think and act in certain prescribed ways, based on a particular understanding of the Bible. This supposed predictability has given rise to the concept of evangelical Christendom as a sort of monolithic bloc, or as a tribe of near-automatons, blindly following their authoritarian leaders. This idea is false.

Respected American pollster George Barna has been studying the beliefs and attitudes of evangelicals for years. In 1997, his research disclosed that 55% of those who had made ‘a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important [to them] in life today’ (i.e. ‘born-again’ Christians) did not believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit. In case you need reminding, the Holy Spirit constitutes one-third of the Christian God - although St Athanasius might object to my wording - and if you don’t believe in the Spirit, you don’t really count as a true evangelical.

In 1997, 52% of born-again Christians denied that Satan existed, agreeing that he was not a living being, but a symbol of evil. They were slightly outscored by the Catholics in Barna’s sample, 72% of whom agreed that Satan had only a symbolic function. 35% of born-again Christians added that although Jesus was crucified, he never experienced a physical resurrection. 33% of the same group thought that if people were good enough, they would earn their way into heaven - so much for justification by faith! And 28% of these evangelicals believed that Jesus had committed sins during his time on earth. (David Morley ‘Windows on the World’, New Life, 24 July 1997, and associated Barna material)

Writing a book about these and similar findings in 2001, Barna declared that less than half of those who called themselves born-again Christians believed that anything at all was ‘absolutely true’ - too bad that Jesus is supposed to have said that he was ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’. Around the same time, a study of 65 common values and traits showed that the values of evangelicals were not substantially different from any other segment of American culture. (Charles Colson ‘In and out of the world: a culture of conformity’, New Life, 2 Aug. 2001)

Earlier blog items have referred to a dissonance between what evangelicals and other conservative Christians are supposed to believe and do, and what they actually believe and do (see, for example, ‘Anti-abortionists who have abortions’, 28 Mar. 2005 and ‘Pastors and porn’, 30 Apr. 2005). As for social attitudes connected with beliefs, the Australian situation is rather like that prevailing in America. For example, a survey of attitudes conducted here in 2003 found that 53% of evangelicals - here defined as Baptists, Lutherans and Pentecostals - agreed with the statement, ‘a woman should have the right to choose whether or not she has an abortion’. 70% of Catholics also agreed. (Farah Farouque ‘Evangelicals back pro-choice: survey’, Melbourne Age, 16 Dec. 2004) I was astonished last week to read Family First Senator Steve Fielding’s response to a question about abortion:

It’s difficult for women. It’s a very difficult decision and one that I wouldn’t like to have to face.

And on homosexual partnerships?

You respect people. It’s up to them to work out what sort of relationships they want to have? (Jane Cadzow ‘Meet the Fieldings’, Good Weekend, 8 Oct. 2005, 27)

Not exactly a fire-and-brimstone denunciation, is it? And where are the Bible verses?

All this became too much for theologian Ronald Sider a few months ago when he published an article entitled ‘The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience’ in Christianity Today (Jan.-Feb. 2005):

Scandalous behaviour is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most ‘Christians’ regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex and self-fulfilment.

Sider went on to quote evangelical theologian Michael Horton:

Gallup and Barna hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centred and sexually immoral as the world in general.

Sider pointed out that divorce was actually more common among born-again Christians than in the general American population. White evangelicals were the most likely people to object to neighbours of another race. Conservative Josh McDowell had charged that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth was ‘only a little less outrageous’ than that of their non-evangelical peers. Sider added that physical abuse of wives ’seems to be worse in evangelical circles than elsewhere.’ (As quoted in Lee Salisbury ‘The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience’, Free Inquiry, Apr.-May 2005, 26, and confirmed from source)

Leaders of Religious Right organisations write and speak as if their rank-and-file memberships all believe and act as they do. Several Australian groups regularly claim the support of the 70% of citizens who classified themselves as ‘Christians’ in the last census. This, of course, is sheer fantasy. Public support for these bodies is restricted to a relatively small number of evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics - perhaps five per cent of the Australian electorate. And if half of those don’t even believe in Satan or the Holy Spirit, and a lot of them are hopping in and out of each other’s beds, well … why bother?

Filed in: Christian Right, Evangelicals