Less Than Half of Born-Again Christians Say Jesus Lived a Sinless Life, Survey

During the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer than half of born-again Christians (46 percent) said they believed God has a unique, God-given calling or purpose in their lives, a dramatic decline from the previous survey, when 88 percent said the same.

As reported by The Christian Post, the survey also found that just 44 percent of Christians believe the Bible is unambiguous when it comes to the issue of abortion. That is a drop from 58 percent. The percentage of people who believe in the sanctity of human life also dropped from 60 percent to 48 percent, and the percentage of Christians who say God is the basis of all truth dropped from 69 percent to 63 percent.

The proportion of Christians who are devoted to putting their faith into practice fell from 86 percent to 50 percent, and the percentage of Christians who read or study the Bible at least weekly dropped from 60 percent to 55 percent.

Regarding the general population of U.S. adults, George Barna, the director of research at the Cultural Research Center, reported a decrease in the share of the population that claims to hold a biblical worldview in the past three years (6 percent to 4 percent), while fewer than half now claim to be “deeply committed to practicing” their religious faith (60 percent to 48 percent).

When it comes to church attendance, 33 percent of adults said they attend church during a typical week which shows “a decline representing the loss of about 15 million churchgoing adults each week.”

Barna said the survey’s findings were “highly unusual” because “religious beliefs and behaviors have typically been a hallmark of consistency.”

“Most religious beliefs change over the course of generations, not a few years,” Barna said. “However, we know that major life crises have the capacity to introduce substantial change quickly in the foundations of people’s faith.

“The pandemic was certainly a life crisis for our nation, so even though this magnitude of spiritual shift was not expected, it is feasible given the physical and psychological effects of COVID along with the economic, relational, and lifestyle effects of the government’s drastic policies,” Barna explained.

The survey was conducted in January 2023 using a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults.

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Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for Christian Headlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.