Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Dr. George Barna: 12 Trends Shaping Faith & Culture Today

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Dr. George Barna: 12 Trends Shaping Faith & Culture Today · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Hey friends, welcome to World View Matters today, our special guest, Dr. George Barnard,
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  director of research at Arizona Christian University's Cultural Research Center, and he,
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  well, he's done some extensive research throughout the years, and very few Americans actually
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  have a Biblical worldview, that's one of the conclusions, in fact only 4% of the adult
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  population in the nation has a Biblical worldview, and when it comes to Christians, the research
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  shows that among adults who, quote, identify as Christian, right, 66% of the population,
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  ready?
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  Only 6% have a Biblical worldview, so we're going to be talking about some of this, talking
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  about some of the trends that will shape in our shaping our culture and our faith right
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  now that's coming up on World View Matters.
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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending Biblical Christianity, no topic off limits, and now here's your host David
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  Fierazzo.
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  Hey friends, so excited to talk about this because, I mean, look at the, look at the title
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  of our podcast, World View Matters.
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  It really does, and we've seen through this great research that Dr. Barna has done, we've
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  seen a lot of disappointing results, and with the American church, and with the nation
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  in general.
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  So we're going to talk about that today with our guest, Dr. George Barna.
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  I also want to mention his recent book, and that is Raising Spiritual Champions, Nurturing
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  Your Child's Heart, Mind, and Soul.
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  We talked a little bit about that last time he was on the podcast with us.
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  Dr. Barna, welcome.
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  Good to see you again.
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  Thanks for your time.
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  Thanks for having me back, David.
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  It's always a pleasure.
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  Yeah, it is.
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  It's, I love talking about this, and my hope and prayer, and I know yours is too, is that
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  we're just not talking about numbers and throwing around results of disappointing research
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  and surveys, but that we are doing something with it, that the church is waking up to the
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  fact that we've got to do a better job of discipling and raising our children and sharing
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  the gospel and preparing the kids before they're too far gone.
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  So let's start today.
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  I wanted to mention, there's research on the Trinity, there's research on confusion, growing
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  as Americans redefine God.
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  But I wanted to start with these 12 trends that are shaping faith and culture this year.
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  And in the headline, it mentions Trump, baby boomers, mental health education, church
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  trends and other shifts that are influencing the direction, really, of our future.
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  Can you just give us an overview of that before we dive into some of the details, specifics?
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  Yeah, I mean, certainly our culture is always in a state of flux.
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  It's always being transformed from one thing to another.
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  The question is, who's going to have the influence and what's the culture going to be
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  transformed to?
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  And why does that matter?
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  Because every person within the culture is being influenced.
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  And so it's particularly important for our children, because that's whose worldview is developing.
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  But they learn that so often by observing what their parents and their teachers and their
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  coaches, other people are doing in their life, they're learning from that.
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  So it's imperative that we're always on top of, where is the culture trying to take
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  me?
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  What's it trying to make me become?
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  More often than not, in American culture these days, it's trying to cause us to become
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  things that are not Christlike.
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  And so we've really got to be on our toes at all times, not simply taking for granted
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  that what people tell us is true or what an institution does or says is true.
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  More often than not, that's not the case.
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  So we've really got to be awake to these things that are going on.
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  And as we look at these trends, we find spiritual trends, we find financial trends, political
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  trends, relational trends, educational trends, I mean, they're just all over the board.
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  We're constantly being pushed to change.
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  We've got to understand what we're being pushed to become.
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  When you started off explaining that just now, I thought about Romans 12, too.
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  He says, do not conform to the world's ways or the pattern of this world.
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  Let me transform by the renewing of your mind.
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  You've been at this for a while.
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  I think I just read 40 years plus tracking these trends.
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  And I know you did an interview recently with our colleague, Alex Newman.
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  That was with the Liberty Sentinel.
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  He's also with Freedom Project.
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  And you talked about this.
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  And one of the things I know we're going back, because we talked about this last time
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  we had you on World View Matters.
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  The fact, were you surprised when you did the research that found only 37% of pastors
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  have a biblical worldview?
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  Because that's going to affect everything else.
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  That's going to affect their churches, maybe the youth groups in the churches and how
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  the Christians respond to culture.
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  Were you surprised at that?
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  Yeah, I think maybe the element of that research that surprised me the most was looking at
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  children's pastors and finding that only 12% of them have a biblical worldview.
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  I think that goes a long way toward helping us understand why children are not developing
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  a biblical worldview.
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  Their parents don't have one.
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  Children's pastors don't have one.
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  Most of their teachers don't have one.
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  Where are they going to get it?
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  Their peers don't have one.
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  So yeah, it's a major challenge.
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  And I don't think that Americans understand just how critical worldview is.
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  Every decision we make every moment of every day flows through our worldview influences
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  everything about who we are and how we live.
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  So it's vitally important that we develop the right one and that we understand what
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  our worldview is and if it's off base, how would we know that?
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  Well, you've got to know enough about what's in the Bible.
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  In order to understand, do we match up with what the scriptures teach?
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  If not, then your worldview is off and you need to change it.
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  We hear oftentimes in some interviews or news programs, the term constitutional crisis,
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  you know, or existential crisis or threat thrown around, but you've used that word when
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  you've warned about this declining biblical worldview among Christians.
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  You called it a crisis before.
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  What is it going to take in your opinion?
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  You've worked with churches for many, many years for maybe more pastors to be aware of
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  this, to wake up.
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  What do you think it's going to take?
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  Well, David, for me, a lot of it goes back to measurement.
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  And I know I'm a measurement guy.
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  Maybe you'd expect me to say that.
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  But one of the things that I teach all my students is you get what you measure, which
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  is another way of saying the things that really matter to you, you pay attention to and you
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  try to figure out how are we doing in that regard.
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  And so when we study churches and try to figure out what the church is measure, what we
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  found is that there tend to be five things they measure, you know, attendance, how many
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  people show up, how much money they give, how many programs the church offers, how many
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  staff people the church has hired, how much square footers has been built up.
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  It's great to measure stuff, but if you measure the wrong things, you're going to produce
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  the wrong things.
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  And in this particular case, we can ask the question, well, are those five things bad?
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  I would say they're not bad, but they're not really relevant.
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  Jesus didn't die on the cross for those things.
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  So let's measure the things that he did die for, which is that we would all become his disciples.
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  And so we were to measure that.
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  We'd be doing things entirely differently than we're doing them now.
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  We'd be measuring very different things.
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  We'd be getting very different outcomes and we need very different outcomes.
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  That's right, disciples, followers of Jesus, it's very different from just being a cultural
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  Christian as we see too much of that today.
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  I've heard some fun terms like cotton candy Christianity or cruise ship Christianity,
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  people that don't have a biblical worldview, but say they're a Christian.
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  What do you see as one of the roadblocks to getting there to where pastors are going to
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  start looking at these serious trends?
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  Well, first of all, most churches really don't pay attention to worldview.
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  They teach a lot of information.
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  They transfer that information to people sitting in the pews, but is it really geared to intentionally
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  and strategically developing a worldview?
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  In most cases, the answer is a clear no.
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  And so we've got to recognize we have to start early with people.
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  The person's worldview starts developing at 15, 18 months of age, is fully developed
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  by the age of 13 in most cases.
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  So number one, maybe what we want to do is shift our emphasis in our churches to children
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  away from adults.
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  Number two, with adults, who do we want to focus on parents?
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  Because they're the ones who biblically have the responsibility for raising children
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  to no love and serve God with all their heart, mind, strength, and soul, and you do that
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  by thinking like Jesus so that you can act like Jesus.
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  That's what a worldview enables you to do, a biblical worldview.
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  And so I would say if we were to make some of those kinds of shifts where the churches
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  think and actually we're here to facilitate children developing a biblical worldview so
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  that they can become disciples of Jesus in order to make that happen.
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  What we're going to do is support and equip their parents who have that biblical responsibility.
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  We want to do everything we can to ensure a victory for them in that process.
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  Yes.
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  And sadly, we can't rely on pastors and especially youth pastors, by the way.
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  I've just heard too many of them that are thinking their job is to entertain the kids, keep
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  them amused for an hour and a half on a Sunday night or Wednesday night.
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  But so childhood worldview development, and I've read in one of the surveys, that a
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  child's worldview is essentially formed by the age of 13.
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  So this stresses the importance of parents really taking this seriously at home, doesn't
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  it?
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  It does.
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  And one of the first questions I get from parents who hear me say that is, my goodness,
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  where do I start?
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  And it's a great question, it's the right question.
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  Now I would say one of the answers is, go back to what we call the seven cornerstones
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  of a biblical worldview, which are seven key beliefs that our research found if you really
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  own those seven beliefs, you know, just parent them, but they become part of who you are
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  and how you live.
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  And therefore you're modeling that for your children and that'll raise conversations
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  about those elements.
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  What we found is if you really own those seven cornerstones, you're going to have an
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  83% chance of going on to develop a biblical worldview.
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  But if you reject even one of those seven, that probability drops to just 2%.
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  So it's a great starting place.
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  It forms a fabulous foundation for children to build on and for families to work together
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  toward becoming more Christlike.
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  I want to give the website, ArizonaChristian.edu.
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  Is there a simpler link that'll get people to the research, Dr. Barna?
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  Yeah, culturalresearchcenter.com.
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  That's easier.
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  Culturalresearchcenter.com.
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  So before we take a brief pause, I want to go to just part of the 2025 faith forecast
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  and trends that you did in this research.
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  And one of them that, number one, the first bullet point, reshaping God to our liking,
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  isn't that one of the commandments?
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  Do not make a God into your own image.
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  Go ahead and share a little bit about that.
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  Yeah, I mean, really the first two commandments address that.
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  And what we've got to do is recognize that it's not up to us to determine who God is,
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  who God should be, what attributes of God we like and don't like.
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  What we're finding in our research, though, is that that's what most Americans are doing.
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  When they read about the God of the Old Testament, they don't like him because they think
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  he's a God of wrath and anger and hatred and bad news.
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  And the reality is he's a God of love and justice and mercy.
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  You got to read the whole story.
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  You got to put it all in context.
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  And when you do that, you come up with a whole different understanding of who am I before
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  this holy right and just God.
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  What a privilege I have to know him.
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  He gives me that privilege.
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  But I've got to recognize who he is compared to who I am.
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  It's all about him.
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  It's not about me.
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  He made me, he made me for his purposes.
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  And I have the privilege and the joy of getting to know him and serve him and love him.
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  And what a great life that is when we pursue that.
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  Most Americans don't pursue that.
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  They want to pursue the things that they think are important.
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  And so they're shaping their sense of a deity or a supernatural power around the way
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  that they think life should be lived.
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  So we're going to take a brief pause.
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  But I'm going to just tease what we have coming up on some of these trends and these bullet
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  points.
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  Public schools will suffer.
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  We're seeing that.
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  And that's been going on for a while.
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  Also mental health issues are escalating.
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  Rethinking college education is one of the bullet points.
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  And we are going to take a little look at discipleship.
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  But we've talked about this before, but it's important to talk more about syncretism.
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  When we come back with Dr. George Barna on World View Matters.
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• 14:05
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• 15:01
  So back with Dr. George Barna before we jump into syncretism, which I find to be so fascinating.
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  Because I'm an old school guy, I think this, I think about ugly quilts that have been made
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  with all these, all the patchwork, right?
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  And so I think each one of those representing a religion or a belief or something that just
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  looks ugly, doesn't go well together with everything else.
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  So we'll talk about that in a minute.
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  But first I want to give you an opportunity, Dr. Barna, to talk about the World View Assessment
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  Tool for churches, ministries, colleges, universities.
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  Tell us about that and how people can get more information on this.
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  Yeah, you know, because we do have a World View Christ in America, we thought, well, how
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  can we add value in this process?
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  And we thought, well, what we do is we measure things.
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  And we know that only 4% of Americans have a biblical worldview and much fewer among
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  children.
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  How can we help?
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  So we put together a tool similar to the one that we use at the beginning of every year
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  to assess the worldview of Americans.
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  And we put that online, we've made that available to people.
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  And so, acuworldviewassessment.com, we'll get people there, or acuworldview.com, we'll
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  get people to that website where they can check it out.
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  And we've got a version for fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders.
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  We have the adult version, groups can use it and there can be a group report that comes
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  out.
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  So we've tried to make it easy for people to get access to knowing what is your worldview.
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  Do you have a biblical worldview?
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  And if not, when you get your report, it will tell you the areas that you're weakest
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  in in terms of the content of your worldview.
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  And then there's another section that goes into resources.
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  So we're trying to help people figure out what they can do.
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  If churches aren't going to take this on, we're going to try to do what we can to help
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  people get to where they need to be to know, love and serve God.
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  This is so important because if you don't start with that biblical worldview, you can
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  veer off in all kinds of different directions, which we'll talk about in a minute.
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  But I want to quote you in something you kind of alluded to earlier about thinking like
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  Jesus and acting like Jesus.
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  You say a clear, well-formed worldview is the foundation of transformative faith.
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  And by measuring worldview, we gain the insights necessary to grow in our relationship with God,
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  ensuring that our thinking and our actions mirror the life of Jesus.
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  I think most people can understand that, Dr. Barna, because it's profound and then
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  it's very simple at the same time.
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  But the application is what gets us, right?
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  It's like that question that lady asked you, so where do I start?
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  Right, and the reality is what we've got is much more head knowledge than the application
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  of that head knowledge.
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  When we measure these things, we find out that okay, we've heard it over and over again,
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  but we haven't integrated it into our hearts and then into our lifestyle.
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  And that's what we've got to really work on.
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  One of the things that I also teach my students, not only get what you measure, but you do
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  what you believe.
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  And so people may parent back something that they've heard a pastor or a teacher say or
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  a Bible teacher say.
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  And yet, if all you're doing is parenting it, but you're not living it, you don't really
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  believe it, because you do what you believe.
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  If you didn't, you'd always be at odds with yourself.
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  You'd always have that kind of psychological and emotional discomfort about who you are,
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  what you're doing, how you're living.
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  Nobody wants to be like that.
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  And so we try to be as consistent as possible.
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  But unfortunately, we've learned how to parent back the right answer sometimes.
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  It's kind of like when you study for a test.
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  You may not believe that equals MC squared.
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  You may have no idea what it means.
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  But you know, that's the answer, so you put it down.
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  Has it changed your life?
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  No, but you want the two points on the test.
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  And unfortunately, that's the way a lot of Americans are living as we know how to parent
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  the right answer.
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  You know, when in doubt, just say, Jesus, but do you really believe it?
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  Are you really living it?
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  That's where the rubber meets the road.
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  Amen.
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  Amen.
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  Application is huge.
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  So now I teased syncretism because I find this so fast and we did talk about this a
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  little bit last time.
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  But yeah, this is part of the trends you're seeing for this year and it really is astounding.
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  How did we get to this point over the decades, Dr. Barnett, that Christians, or I should
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  say those who identify or profess to be Christian, meaning they somewhat understand the Bible,
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  the Gospel message, but maybe they don't have a biblical worldview.
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  They got to the point where they're adding different religions or concepts or philosophies,
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  which the Bible warns against don't be captivated by worldly philosophies.
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  But yeah, this is what's happening when we're patching these religions and belief systems
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  together and thinking it can still be Christian.
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  How do we get here?
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  Where did that confusion come from?
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  Well, there are a number of things that happened at the same time that facilitated that.
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  One was that parents began outsourcing parenting and so they're allowing experts to raise
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  their children, whether it's teachers or tutors or coaches or pastors, whoever it may
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  be.
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  It's like, well, you're the experts.
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  You do it.
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  I don't know what I'm doing as a parent and so I want the experts to do it.
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  Unfortunately, that's opening door number one to a lot of different worldview ideas being
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  entered into their child's minds and hearts.
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  Secondly, we find that churches have paid very little attention to children.
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  They're basically bait to get adults onto the church campus, rather than recognizing,
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  you know what, the future of the church depends on what we do with our children today.
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  Thirdly, we look at the fact that almost nobody measures worldview.
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  It blows my mind that here, Arizona, Christian University, the Cultural Research Center, who?
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  We're the only ones who measure worldview year after year after year in American society.
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  We measure what kind of shoes people buy.
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  We measure what kind of candidates they like.
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  We measure that stuff ad nauseam, but what matters the most are worldview that we pay
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  an attention to.
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  So we've been seduced away from paying attention to the things that matter.
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  And then fourth, I'd add to that the fact that the culture is influencing the Christian
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  body more than the Christian body in America is influencing the culture.
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  So we're taking our worldview cues from the media, from movies, from music, from television,
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  from video games, etc.
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  So all of those things have to shift if we're going to get back in alignment with God.
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  Yeah, we're taking our worldview cues from all kinds of other places except the Bible.
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  What could go wrong?
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  So in this research, I didn't mention the number and it's still astounding to me 92% of Americans
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  adhere to syncretism.
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  But you say this, the trend is likely to grow as biblical teaching loses cultural influence.
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  But there are signs of spiritual interest among Gen Z.
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  And we've seen increased Bible sales.
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  This gives us a little bit of hope, we're seeing a younger generation that maybe hasn't
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  been discipled, but they may be more interested in spiritual things.
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  Can you tell us a little bit about that?
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  Yeah, it's a group that right now is searching to try to figure out how does life work and
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  how does faith fit into that.
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  That's great.
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  We didn't have that same kind of opening with the millennial generation.
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  So with Z, we can't afford to ignore this.
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  We've got to take advantage of it.
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  But what that means is that we've got to be prepared and we have to be devoted to that
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  activity.
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  So how do we do that?
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  We've got to build relationships and have conversations with them.
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  That's how it's going to work.
• 22:59
  That's how discipleship becomes effective.
• 23:02
  Because when you've got a relationship with somebody, they know you, they trust you.
• 23:06
  They're willing to converse with you.
• 23:09
  And you don't beat them over.
• 23:10
  They have with the Bible.
• 23:11
  But you ask them a lot of questions about what they're looking for, what they believe,
• 23:15
  why they believe that, how they came to that conclusion, how they're using that in their
• 23:20
  life, what kind of impact that's having, what kind of challenge is it's raising, all
• 23:25
  those kinds of things develop that trust even deeper and eventually give us the opportunity
• 23:31
  to share the things that we've learned.
• 23:33
  But also not just to talk about them, that's important.
• 23:37
  But to model them for people, it's one thing to say, well, this is what I believe.
• 23:42
  But as we're just talking about, it's the behavior that actually has to demonstrate what that
• 23:47
  looks like in practice.
• 23:49
  That's how young people learn is they watch their interest and then they imitate.
• 23:55
  That's what we're trying to do with Jesus to be a disciple of Jesus.
• 23:57
  This means we watch Him and then we imitate Him.
• 24:01
  And so we want to be a Christ like influence in their life by imitating Jesus so they can
• 24:07
  imitate us and through that they imitate Jesus.
• 24:10
  Ambassadors for Christ.
• 24:12
  So important.
• 24:13
  We know somebody's watching our lives.
• 24:15
  They're watching what we do and say as Christians.
• 24:17
  That's a very important point.
• 24:18
  Now you talked about the escalation, the continued escalation of mental health issues is one
• 24:23
  of the trends we are seeing this year even more.
• 24:27
  But one thing maybe we can wrap up on, this is interesting.
• 24:30
  The rethinking of college education, can you touch on that before we wrap up?
• 24:34
  Yeah, there are a lot of things taking place in the education realm right now.
• 24:38
  One of which is that fewer students are going to go to colleges in the near future.
• 24:45
  Part of the reason is finance, but a bigger part of the reason is that our national economy
• 24:49
  is being reshaped.
• 24:51
  And so with more manufacturing jobs coming back to the United States with more technology
• 24:56
  jobs being developed in the United States, it's going to become much more attractive and
• 25:01
  practical for many students to go to trade schools or tech schools that prepare them for
• 25:08
  a viable career in the future economy of the country.
• 25:12
  So that's going to shape things as well as many of the bills that are before Congress
• 25:16
  right now that are going to take away some of the loans and other kinds of scholarships
• 25:23
  and funding that will be available for students.
• 25:26
  They won't have the money to go to those colleges.
• 25:29
  So they're going to say, okay, how can I have a good career?
• 25:33
  What kind of training should I get for that?
• 25:36
  That's very interesting.
• 25:37
  We're seeing a lot of different trends from education to the corporate world to politics,
• 25:42
  my goodness, hello, but a lot of focus is on that now, isn't it?
• 25:45
  A lot of focus is on the political, but the church, we do need to engage in the political
• 25:51
  realm, but we also need to make sure we are, as you say, raising spiritual champions,
• 25:56
  doing the discipling and building, establishing a biblical worldview.
• 26:01
  Dr. Barnett, about a minute and a half, just some closing thoughts to encourage young
• 26:06
  parents, older parents in this battle.
• 26:09
  You know, one of the interesting things in our research about worldview has to do with
• 26:13
  the concept of success.
• 26:16
  What is success?
• 26:18
  And in America, we've been led to believe it relates to achievements.
• 26:22
  It relates to who you know, how far ahead you can get.
• 26:27
  The reality is, biblically, success is consistent obedience to God.
• 26:33
  So I'd encourage everybody who's listening to take a step back, and when we talk about
• 26:37
  you get what you measure, how do you measure success in your own life?
• 26:42
  Is it about your consistent obedience to God's word, to the principles that He gave
• 26:47
  us to live in accordance with, in harmony with?
• 26:51
  And so if that's your measure, you're probably going to get on the track to real success.
• 26:56
  If it's not your measure of success, you're in for a world or hurt for a long period of
• 27:02
  time.
• 27:03
  Thank you.
• 27:04
  So very much.
• 27:05
  Again, friends, the website culturalresearchcenter.com.
• 27:09
  The book raising spiritual champions, so much more available if you want to learn what's
• 27:16
  going on, what the trends are, how we got here.
• 27:19
  Just check out Dr. Barnas' research at Arizona Christian University.
• 27:23
  We so appreciate what you do, and thank you for your time today.
• 27:26
  God bless you, sir.
• 27:27
  Thank you, too, David.
• 27:29
  Friends, this is so important.
• 27:31
  I mean, it's in the title of our podcast, man, worldview matters.
• 27:36
  It's a huge issue, and as Dr. Barnas said, we're in a crisis right now.
• 27:40
  How will we come out of this?
• 27:42
  Well, to be continued, God bless you, and as always, keep speaking the truth about things
• 27:46
  that matter.