I like to read a broad spectrum of things. I’ll read news from a broad range of sites from reasonably non-partisan sites to very partisan ones. I also read from religious and free thought/atheist sites. I find it fascinating to see how different parts of the spectrum cover a story. It can be a good way to check the story. If both parts of the spectrum get the basic facts of the story the same, you know that other stuff in the various stories are opinion and spin. If one part of the spectrum get’s the facts totally off, then you know who is spinning the story more.
One of my stops often is “The Gospel Coalition ” (thegospelcoalition.org). This site pretty much covers things from the point of view of the Southern Baptist Convention. Opinions, politics and theology are pretty much party line from that organization. You will not find articles advocating gay rights, labor unions, climate science, feminism or liberal political and economic polices. Even knowing this I was still shocked to see this title to a story: “Poll Finds Increasing Number of American’s Reject Reality” by senior writer Joe Carter. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/americans-reject-reality/ this is from July 27, 20223.
In the article, Carter is reviewing the results of a Gallup poll from July 2023. Gallup is a national polling company that conducts polls for a variety of organizations as doing ones for their own research. They have been looking at religious issues for years. This particular poll is an update of one that has been done for years. They polled a spectrum of American’s on some religious concepts. This poll looked at the number people across various age spectrums on the concepts of: “god”, heaven, angels, hell and “the devil”. I looked the poll and their questions do not define the concepts, leaving up to the person being questioned to assign their own definition. This means that people are going with their own definitions of those concepts. What the poll found is that there has been a decline in belief of the 5 concepts from 2001-2023 that is fairly significant. And this is what Carter is concerned about. However it was his article title and his conclusions that got my attention.
Belief in the concepts have dropped by 20% or more on several of the concepts since 2021. Here is the difference: “god” 90%-74%; heaven 83%-63%; angels 79%-69%; hell 71%-59%; “the devil” 68%-58%. Carter is concerned that people are shifting where the get “authority” from. He says “that’s why we shouldn’t be surprised by this Gallup poll. If god, angels, heaven and are real-of course they are- they possess and existential threat to the idea that truths is based on a person’s feelings.” Carter is missing the point. He thinks that his version of Christianity is the “truth” and the rest of us just need to accept that and follow its stricture’s and rules. The thing that TGC and its writer’s aren’t going to mention is that there are thousands of versions of Christianity and many of them define the five concepts very differently. It’s hypocritical to criticize people for having different concepts when there are so many versions.
It was the article title that got me to read it. When your concept of reality is based on bronze age stories and mythology, it’s going to be jarring when the most of the rest of us find those concepts unbelievable. TGC needs to look at their own presentation of the concepts and figure out why most of us are not buying it. Insulting us by saying we “reject reality” will not bring more people to their religion. Carter’s only solution is “Jesus better ”.
Good luck with that.
Notes Along The Way 