THE BARNA GROUP — American researcher George Barna has been surveying attitudes and responses to Christianity for several decades. He highlighted four major themes to emerge in recent years: “First of all,” noted Barna, “Americans are very comfortable with religious faith. Faith and spirituality remain hot issues in people's lives. (A large majority claims to be “deeply spiritual” and say that their religious faith is “very important,” but only 15 per cent of those who regularly attend a Christian church ranked their relationship with God as the top priority in their life.)
“Second, people do not have an accurate view of themselves when it comes to spirituality. They have positive feelings about the importance of faith, but their faith is rarely the focal point of their life or a critical factor in their decision-making.” Barna's third theme was that if people's faith is objectively measured against a biblical standard of how faith is to be practiced, Americans are spiritually lukewarm. Finally, Barna felt that the most intriguing blip on the radar screen is the growth within a number of movements of deeply spiritual people who are departing from conventional forms and communities of faith. “The Revolutionary community — which incorporates divergent but compatible groups of people who are seeking to make their faith the driving force in their life — is reshaping American faith in ways which we are just beginning to understand.”
