Barna: You Don’t Have to Be Christian
by Bob Schwartz
If you have any interest in the state of American religion—or of American society—you must pay attention to the Barna Group. Founded by George Barna in 1984, for decades jit has been analyzing American attitudes towards and participation in religion, from the perspective of informing Christian churches. By its nature, though, this is not necessarily a denominational narrow view. Consider, by analogy, market research by General Motors. That research is not entirely, or even primarily, about consumers and GM cars. It is about consumers and all car companies and cars and transportation in general. Just so, state-of-the-art quality research on religion is valuable to anyone in the field.
Beyond this, it is valuable for anyone interested in America. For example, our public discussion includes the terms Christian, evangelical, born again, etc., being thrown around casually as if everyone knows and agrees on what they mean—except that everyone doesn’t. That lack of rigor isn’t a luxury that Barna has. It has defined these and other terms with surgical precision, so that the research itself can be precise and informative.
The just-released report on Three Spiritual Journeys of Millennials is only the latest example of how fascinating and useful the Barna research can be. When numbers of people flee from organized religion, only the most shortsighted think that this is a just a problem for Christianity or for any other religious institution. A social sea change is a sea change, and not trying to seriously assess its meaning and implications is simply foolish. Those who applaud the phenomenon as a sign of long overdue enlightenment—of people finally coming to their senses—are not thinking it through. Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, areligionist, anti-religionist, this report—and all that Barna does—can help you with that thinking.
Bob Schwartz 
“When numbers of people flee from organized religion, only the most shortsighted think that this is a just a problem for Christianity or for any other religious institution. A social sea change is a sea change, and not trying to seriously assess its meaning and implications is simply foolish. Those who applaud the phenomenon as a sign of long overdue enlightenment—of people finally coming to their senses—are not thinking it through.”
And a sea change is still just change. The world is not falling apart. Is it really any more serious than the changing seas in non-religious areas?
Is this only important to the Resistance to change?
The short answer is that, yes, it is different. Religion is so woven into the fabric of history and current society–in some ways, in some places, it is the fabric–that the valence and impact of a change in it is greater. With so much built on, with and around religion, those related elements are thrown into a dynamic as soon as religion appears to subside. So, no, things don’t necessarily fall apart, but things non-religious can change radically, and understanding change and its roots is better than misunderstanding and screaming at each other. This is part of the reason I’ve advocated teaching students about the phenomenon of religion and its significance, but that makes so many people from all sides so upset that it is generally unworkable.
“understanding change and its roots is better than misunderstanding and screaming at each other”
I assume, then, that this is the core message?
Perhaps the fighting is simply a matter of focus, or rather a lack of focus on the important bits.
The key thing that people forget to focus on rather than religion, is spirituality. It’s faithfully consistent in the whole species, and not dependent on membership.
Perhaps we should sprinkle that on our knowledge of religious history, so it is a little easier to digest.
Thank you for clarifying. And as always, thank you for a great post.