What is the dominant religion of pastors filling pulpits of “Christian” churches across the US? A new study from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University found that a staggering 62% of pastors don’t have a biblical worldview. Instead, they have a worldview of syncretism—in other words, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, mixed together with Christianity.
The researchers described syncretism this way:
Their prevailing worldview is best described as Syncretism, the blending of ideas and applications from a variety of holistic worldviews into a unique but inconsistent combination that represents their personal preferences. More than six out of 10 pastors (62%) have a predominantly syncretistic worldview.
Rather than building their thinking on God’s Word, the majority of pastors are basing their beliefs on “personal preferences.” In other words, it’s like I’ve been saying for years: many in the church, including its leaders, have set themselves up as the authority over God and his Word. It’s a devastating disease and it’s infecting both pulpits and pews!
The study asked the pastors (including senior, associate, teaching, children’s, youth, and executive pastors—more on that below) a series of 54 worldview-related questions and discovered these low percentages of those with a biblical worldview:
- only 47% of the pastors have a biblical worldview regarding family and the value of life;
- 44% concerning issues related to God, creation, and history (personally, I wonder if this number is actually much lower, depending on how specific the survey questions were regarding Genesis chapters 1-11, creation, and history”);
- 43% in relation to personal faith practices;
- 43% when it comes to matters of sin, salvation, and one’s relationship with God;
- 40% pertaining to human character and human nature;
- and 40% when it comes to measures of lifestyle, personal behavior, and relationships.
It’s worth noting the breakdown in biblical worldview between different types of pastors. Among senior pastors 41% have a biblical worldview, while only 28% of associate pastors do. And only 13% of teaching pastors and 4% of executive pastors hold to a biblical worldview. Among children’s and youth pastors, the number is a minuscule 12%! As researcher George Barna pointed out,
A person’s worldview primarily develops before the age of 13, then goes through a period of refinement during their teens and twenties.
From a worldview perspective, a church’s most important ministers are the children’s pastor and the youth pastor. Discovering that seven out of every eight of those pastors lack a biblical worldview helps to explain why so few people in the nation’s youngest generations are developing a heart and mind for biblical principles and ways of life, and why our society seems to have run wild over the last decade, in particular.”
This study’s results are extremely alarming for the future and health of the church. If pastors don’t possess a biblical worldview, they cannot pass it along, and individuals and families suffer from the lack of biblical shepherding and teaching.
Sadly, I’m not shocked by the results of this study. Anyone who has heard me speak over the past few decades knows I’ve been calling the church to repent of compromise with the world’s thinking and get back to God’s Word. If we don’t take God’s Word as the ultimate and final authority, from its very first verse, compromise and syncretism are direct consequences. Truth becomes a “pick and choose” buffet instead of a commitment to God’s Word.
We need a new reformation in the church—a return to the authority of God’s Word from the very first verse. Pastors need to repent of compromise and get back to first believing and then teaching God’s Word accurately, instead of adding the world’s opinions into Scripture.
