The Facts, Just the Facts

On Dragnet many years ago Sergeant Friday wanted the facts. Everyone has an opinion, but the facts provide the evidence to reach a right conclusion. The facts are that Christian teenagers are departing from the faith and becoming like the world. Here are the results of three recent surveys.

1. “According to a stunning new survey by America's Research Group, 95 percent of 20 to 29 year old evangelicals attended church regularly during their elementary and middle school years. However, only 55 percent of them attended church regularly during high school, and only 11 percent of them were still regularly attending church when in college.”

2.”Another new survey by the Barna group reveals that less than 1 percent of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 23 hold a Biblical worldview. This new poll data clearly demonstrates that the youngest adults in America are clearly rejecting traditional evangelical Christian teaching.

The Barna survey defined "a Biblical worldview" as holding all of the following six key beliefs:1) Believing that absolute moral truth exists.

2) Believing that the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches.

3) Believing that Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic.

4) Believing that a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or by doing good works.

5) Believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth.

6) Believing that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.”

3. “The board of the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group representing 60 denominations and dozens of ministries, passed a resolution this year deploring “the epidemic of young people leaving the evangelical church.” Their alarm has been stoked by a survey claim that if current trends continue, only 4 percent of teenagers will be “Bible-believing Christians” as adults. That would be a sharp decline compared with 35 percent of the current generation of baby boomers, and before that, 65 percent of the World War II generation. There is widespread consensus among evangelical leaders that they risk losing their teenagers.”

Also quoted from the New York Times article “Evangelicals Fear the Loss of Their Teenagers” of 10/06/2006 “Genuine alarm can be heard from Christian teenagers and youth pastors, who say they cannot compete against a pervasive culture of cynicism about religion, and the casual “hooking up” approach to sex so pervasive on MTV, on Web sites for teenagers and in hip-hop, rap and rock music. Divorced parents and dysfunctional families also lead some teenagers to avoid church entirely or to drift away.

“Over and over in interviews, evangelical teenagers said they felt like a tiny, beleaguered minority in their schools and neighborhoods. They said they often felt alone in their struggles to live by their “Biblical values” by avoiding casual sex, risqué music and videos, Internet pornography, alcohol and drugs.”

Whether we like it or not, those are the facts. The facts speak louder than words of opinion. The eternal welfare of our children is too important to continue letting the worldly system destroy them. God’s plan includes the promise in Daniel 11:32 that in the midst of troubling events toward the end of the age, “those who know their God will be strong and do great exploits.” If ever there was a time to put your children in a Christian environment where they can know Jesus and learn to walk in the truth of His Word, that time is NOW. For such a time as this.