Results of Barna Survey

The following consists of excerpts from studies made by Geo. Barna. His web site is www.barna.org I think you will be as surprised as I was by many of these findings. Dr. Robert Dreyfus

The Importance Of Reaching People When They’re Young

George Barna, whose company has been conducting research for more than twenty years, commented, “Recent studies we have conducted show that the beliefs a person holds at age 13 vary little during their adult years. The most effective way to influence such beliefs is by teaching people when they are young and still in a spiritually formative stage.”
“Adults essentially carry out the beliefs they embraced when they were young, The reason why Christians are so similar in their attitudes, values and lifestyles to non-Christians is that they were not sufficiently challenged to think and behave differently – radically differently, based on core spiritual perspectives – when they were children. A person’s lifelong behaviors and views are generally developed when they are young – particularly before they reach the teenage years”. As evidence of this, Barna provided research that showed four critical outcomes.
1. “A person’s moral foundations are generally in place by the time they reach age nine. While those foundations are refined and the application of those foundations may shift to some extent as the individual ages, their fundamental perspectives on truth, integrity, meaning, justice, morality, and ethics are formed quite early in life. After their first decade, most people simply refine their views as they age without a wholesale change in those leanings.”
2. “A majority of Americans make a lasting determination about the personal significance of Christ’s death and resurrection by age 12.”
3. “In most cases people’s spiritual beliefs are irrevocably formed when they are pre-teens.”
4. “In essence, what you believe by the time you are 13 is what you will die believing. Of course, there are many individuals who go through life-changing experiences in which their beliefs are altered, or instances in which a concentrated body of religious teaching changes one or more core beliefs. However, most people’s minds are made up and they believe they know what they need to know spiritually by age 13.”
Citing research showing that a large proportion of church-going people dropout of church between the ages of 18 and 24. The percentage of teens who are not only born again but also believe in the accuracy of the Bible, personal responsibility to evangelize, believe in salvation by grace alone, and possess orthodox biblical views on God, Jesus and Satan - have declined from 10% in 1995 to just 4% today. This demise is attributable to growing numbers of teenagers who accept moral relativism and pluralistic theology as their faith foundation. Public schools use values clarification and situational ethics beginning at a very young age to indoctrinate children.