Sad

I read a news article yesterday that began with "America remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don't feel their religion is the only way to eternal life — even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise. " Hmm... interesting. We are a nation of believers, but we really don't believe what we say we believe. So what do we believe? Well, according to this survey of 35,000 American adults 57 percent of evangelical church attenders said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, in conflict with traditional evangelical teaching.
By many measures, Americans are strongly religious: 92 percent believe in God, 74 percent believe in life after death and 63 percent say their respective scriptures are the word of God.
But deeper investigation found that more than one in four Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants and Orthodox Christians expressed some doubts about God's existence, as did six in ten Jews.
Here is the one that disturbs me the least, I think:
Another finding almost defies explanation: 21 percent of self-identified atheists said they believe in God or a universal spirit, with 8 percent "absolutely certain" of it. So let me get this straight: 25% of people who call themselves "Christian" doubt that God exists, along with a whopping 60% of Jewish people, but 21% of atheists believe in God or something out there. Say whaaaaat?!!?!?!?
Here is one I find really disturbing:
Nearly across the board, the majority of religious Americans believe many religions can lead to eternal life: mainline Protestants (83 percent), members of historic black Protestant churches (59 percent), Roman Catholics (79 percent), Jews (82 percent) and Muslims (56 percent).
What are our Protestant churches teaching? Oh, that's right a lot of them aren't teaching. Some people might say to me "Now Kelli, what do you think we are doing in our multi-million dollar buildings, with our purpose driven/seeker friendly/multimedia presentations? " Well, I'll tell you-I think you are dropping the ball, spiritually speaking. The way that many churches do business is malarkey. We have "lessons" that are more or less pep talks about how "special" we are and how much God "values" us.* To be truthful, I think that some of our "church services" are a stench in God's nose. (Nor shall their sacrifices be pleasing to Him. It shall be like bread of mourners to them; All who eat it shall be defiled. For their bread shall be for their own life; It shall not come into the house of the LORD. Hosea 9:4) We have GOT to get back to teaching doctrinal truths in our churches and in our homes. We are losing younger generations because what they see out of church is that it is a place to go and play ball and hang out with friends. One last thing from that article: "The survey shows religion in America is, indeed, 3,000 miles wide and only three inches deep," said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion. I couldn't agree with him more.

* yes, I am aware of the fact that all people are special and valuable to God. I am just saying that if all we ever talk about is "you are special, God loves you, God values you...." We can mislead people into thinking that they are good. (See Romans 10:3-As it is written: “ There is none righteous, no, not one) We tend to use the verse "All have sinned...." Romans 3:23, as an excuse. It was written as a condemnation, not a crutch. If all people hear is how special they are they tend not believe that they are sinful and have a need for a Savior. I feel like that is a BIG contributor to the "more than One Way" belief.