New Study Shows the Bible Is Being Pushed Out of American Lives

If it feels as though the Bible is being pushed out of the American culture, a new Barna study confirms it.

For its 2019 State of the Bible study, Barna discovered that about half of Americans aren’t engaged with the Bible at all.

In a country built on Judeo-Christian principles and God-given rights, says the American Pastors Network , this is a disturbing trend.

For the most recent survey, Barna and the American Bible Society asked American adults 14 questions about their interactions with and perspectives about the Bible, then defined five segments of Bible engagement measuring concepts such as frequency, centrality and impact.

Nearly half—48%—are classified as “Bible Disengaged,” meaning they interact with the Bible infrequently, if at all, and the Bible has minimal impact on their lives.

“As if this trend wasn’t already evident, this study backs up the fact that not only is the Bible and its universal wisdom being eroded from American families, American government and the American society as a whole, it is the trailing evidence of God being tossed aside in our culture,” said APN president and national host Sam Rohrer. “There was a time in our history when God and His Word—the Bible—was integral to every part of our civilization. We would hardly consider making a decision without it. It was referenced in the home. It was taught in our schools. It was incorporated into our laws and integrated into our courts of justice. It was quoted by politicians, judges, educators and even entertainers. It permeated the great literature of Western Civilization. But with the multitude of attacks on the integrity, inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible over the past century, respect for and interest in the Bible has waned. We no longer have time for the Word of God in our lives. What’s even more dangerous is that when we have no time for the Bible, it means we think we have no time nor need for God!

“What’s being overlooked, however, is the fact that the Bible is crucial to the survival of our nation,” Rohrer added. “Without it, we are lost, our nation declining, freedom fleeting, security gone and God’s blessing removed. As Deuteronomy 4:7-8 says, ‘For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?’ This means that the Bible is the most important book on the planet, in a class by itself, surpassing all others, because the Bible is the Word of God. And for those who choose to push it out of their lives, ruin awaits.”

For the Bible engagement study, Barna also shared these findings:

  • The number of “Bible-centered” adults, the top tier in the survey for Bible engagement, has decreased from 9 percent to 5 percent in the past year.
  • More than one-third of adults (35%) reports never using the Bible in 2019, a 10 percentage point increase since 2011.
  • Roughly two in five U.S. adults (42%) say the Bible has not had such an impact in their lives, while six in 10 adults (59%) believe the Bible has transformed their lives.
  • A separate study from LifeWay Research, as reported in The Christian Post, also found that more than half of Protestant churchgoers (55%) have not shared the Gospel in the past six months.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

American Pastors Network: Nearly Half Would Vote for a Socialist President, But Socialism Is Anti-God and Violates Biblical and Constitutional Truth

The May 25 cover of World Magazine asks a pointed question—“When will we ever learn?”—followed by a bold declaration—“Socialism typically brings dictatorship and death.”

The American Pastors Network  has delved into the topic of socialism many times on its popular daily radio program, “Stand in the Gap Today,” as well as on “Stand in the Gap TV.”

“What about socialism should be objectionable to the Christian community?” co-host, APN President, Sam Rohrer, asks. “If we go to the heart of socialism—not from the standpoint of an historical idea that we’ve fought wars against, though that should not be lost on Americans—it is more than just another economic system and another way to provide government services. By its nature, socialism arises from an atheistic worldview and is directly opposed to everything that is biblical, of God or of truth.

“Socialism is anti-God,” Rohrer emphasized, “and that’s very easy to prove by the words of those who are proponents of it and what they’ve said about socialism. Those who support socialism directly oppose the Constitution. Anyone in office who promotes socialism, by their very words, violates their oath of office and subverts our representative republic. Socialism represents a frontal attack on biblical truth, the Bible, and on civil truth, the Constitution.”

Alarmingly, socialism’s acceptance isn’t just within those identified as the ‘Left,’ but has tentacles even within the professing church as well, Rohrer said.

“One very shocking and disturbing fact is indicated by multiple studies conducted in the past two years,” he said. “These surveys indicate that between 44 and 58 percent of millennials say they favor socialism as an alternative form of governance to what we have in the United States and, specifically, that they prefer socialism to capitalism.”

This prompts these fundamental questions, Rohrer said.

* How did we get to the place in the United States today where our younger Americans are seemingly embracing what we and our fathers and grandfathers fought and died to oppose?

* How could the godless, atheistic ideology that involved America in two world wars become embedded into American culture?

* How could the nation where ‘in God we Trust’ appears on our coins and in our media and culture become ‘in Government we trust’?

* How has God become so dethroned and rejected? How could the institutions of learning, the media, the government and the church become so silent and even enablers of the very values that were once clearly opposed by our nation and opposite to a Judeo-Christian worldview?

* How could such erosion have occurred so quickly and so dramatically affected our next generation?”

Another study recently found that nearly half of Americans would vote for a socialist president. The characteristic of “socialist” is the last on the list in the Gallup poll for 2019, but 47% is still a significant number. The number was unchanged from 2015 to today, Gallup found.

The question, Rohrer continued, should no longer be “Do we have a generation and nation who considers socialism with its root in atheism acceptable?” but rather, “How did atheism and the promoters of socialism and cultural Marxism actually penetrate the institutions of America and our Judeo-Christian worldview sufficiently to move our nation to this perilous point?”

For the issue exploring socialism, World’s cover story, “The view from ‘Doralzuela”—a Miami suburb in Doral, Florida, now known as Doralzuela because so many refugees from the world’s latest socialist experiment now huddle there—reports how refugees at the ground level describe socialism’s latest failure and also asks, “Will young Americans listen?”

Fox News also recently reported that socialism is “to blame for economic downfall of oil-rich countries,” according to one energy expert. “The oil-rich countries backed by socialist governments have overseen a long economic meltdown due in part to the lack of private sector investments,” according to Fox.

But even with this current, mainstream media coverage, the rise of socialism has been coming for a long time.

“The apparent meteoric rise in the acceptance of socialism in America may seem baffling, but in reality, where we are is the result of where we’ve been heading for a long time,” Rohrer said. “Thinkers like Karl Marx wanted to dethrone God in America, and Friedrich Nietzsche declared that God had been killed in the minds of his culture. To go from then until now requires an enormously powerful deception.

“Over time, it was a purposeful and repeated deception of the American people through the four Marxist steps to successful brainwashing—1) demoralization; 2) destabilization; 3) chaos; and 4) new norm/new order,” Rohrer added. “In each of these steps, a person, a group of people or an entire nation is moved in their thinking and beliefs away from absolute truth, God, a biblical worldview, traditional family and God’s view of human sexuality to, ultimately, a position of chaos with an ultimate craving to cry out to government for help in bringing societal order and thus inviting in atheistic socialism. Does this sound familiar in politics, public education or even some churches? It all starts with a Godless worldview, discarding truth and sowing seeds of doubt.”

Photo by Arnaud Jaegers on Unsplash

Americans and Pastors Have Differing Views on Direction of Religious Liberty

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Over the weekend, Vice President Mike Pence told Liberty University graduates who were celebrating Commencement that they should prepare to be “shunned” for being a Christian, especially as it becomes “acceptable and even fashionable to ridicule and discriminate against people of faith” in the United States.

Americans seem to be on track with the vice president, says the American Pastors Network According to a new Barna study, more agree that religious freedom is declining. Pastors, however, don’t seem to be as concerned.

“Just by reading the news and seeing case after case of bakers, florists and photographers head to court, Americans realize that our religious liberties are under attack,” said APN President and national radio and television host Sam Rohrer. “With fewer living by a Biblical worldview and fewer identifying as Christian, and with more calling themselves ‘nones’ and more of our politicians heading further left, how can this not be the case? Christians are—and should be—concerned that standing up for their beliefs will become increasingly more difficult. They will likely turn to their pastors and church leaders for guidance, but if ministers don’t see the risk of a loss of religious freedom, there will be a dangerous and demoralizing disconnect.”

Barna conducted the “Faith Leadership in a Divided Culture” study over four years and found that, in 2012, one-third of Americans (33%) said religious freedom was worse than the 10 years before. By 2015, that number had increased to 41% who stated religious liberty had declined, and in 2017, the number ticked up again, to 43%. In all, Barna says, “the general belief that religious freedom in the U.S. is on the decline increased by 10 percentage points over the course of five years.”

Perplexingly, though, Barna found that Protestant pastors’ concern about restrictions to religious freedom is actually decreasing, dropping from 55% in the 2014 survey of all Christian and non-Christian clergy who said they were “very concerned that religious freedom will become more restricted in the next five years.” This percentage fell to below half (49%) in the 2015-16 study and to one-third (34%) in 2017.

Rohrer said the fact that parishioner and pastor views don’t match on this issue is concerning.

“Among the most precious constitutional guarantees is the God-given right to freedom of religion, which is under attack in our nation as we speak and must be defended, lest we awake to the stark reality that while we slept, the enemy crept in unaware,” Rohrer added. “Like the proverbial frog in the water who refuses to jump out as the water temperature increases because the change happens gradually, so are freedoms lost in nations and are being lost in our nation right now. Across the broad spectrum of freedoms we’ve come to take for granted, there are increasing attacks. At first, they are only nibbles, the temperature only slightly increased. Then the nibbles become bites. The temperature goes up. At some point the water begins to boil and it’s too late to move. Then that fragile freedom is gone, never to return to that generation. History is replete with examples of such collapse, moving from freedom to bondage.”

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

National Day of Prayer: We Must Know What God Requires of Us

Note: This article was originally published on the Lifezette News site HERE.

Thursday is the National Day of Prayer, and it’s clear our nation needs prayer. You’ve heard the phrase, “Prayer changes things,” but do we believe it? The Apostle Paul told us to “pray without ceasing,” and James said “the effectual prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much.”

As Christians, we should place great value on prayer—personal and national—because God does. But do we ever wonder why more people don’t pray and why we don’t see more answers to prayer? Most Christians know in their head that prayer is important, and some pray faithfully for our nation and themselves, yet we may see few visible answers.

There are four reasons why God says He won’t answer some prayers. If we plan to assemble and pray for our nation, doesn’t it make sense to know what God requires when we pray?

1. Praying with an Unclean Heart

Prayer can be powerful. It can move mountains, or it can move nothing. Sadly, when most people pray, they just go through the motions with no power or results because their hearts are unclean. Psalms 66:18 says, “If I harbor sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Unconfessed sin is fatal to effective prayer. The Psalmist further says, even if we sacrifice and cry out with great passion but hold sin in our heart, God won’t answer. In fact, He won’t even listen!

Living in sin or harboring unconfessed sin guarantees unanswered prayers. In these perilous days in our nation when few people actually pray, shouldn’t we who do look into our hearts first? Can God answer your prayers or is sin preventing Him from even hearing you?

2. Praying According to Our Will—Not God’s

God wants us to pray, but He demands it be done His way, including for the right reasons. Scripture is clear—answered prayer requires praying according to God’s will. How often do we pray seeking only our desires? When we pray as God requires, He’ll answer. But if we don’t, He won’t hear us.

Jesus Christ prayed according to His Father’s will. Shouldn’t we? Seeing our prayers answered demands obedient living, including a submissive attitude to God’s will. So, as Christ prayed, let us also finish with the words, ‘nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.’ Powerful prayer will reflect seeking God’s will in our prayers.

3. Praying Without Faith

How often do we come to God in prayer but don’t really expect Him to answer? Christ said in Matthew 21:22, “…whatsoever you ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Christ told His disciples, when you pray in faith, truly believing that God can answer, you will be able to do great things—even

move mountains! The opposite is also true—little faith, little power. Sometimes we don’t see answers to prayer because we don’t really believe God can or will answer. Let’s pray in power and with faith believing. God will then answer just like He promised, and even move mountains.

4. Selfish Prayers

Because our national leaders have so arrogantly and repeatedly rejected God’s rule nationally and so many individuals have rejected God’s authority personally, we’re in trouble and we need God’s help. Living in sin, praying according to our own will and praying with little faith will all prevent God from answering our prayers. James 4:3 gives us a fourth reason. James says, “You ask and receive not, because you ask that you may consume it upon your lusts.”

Selfish praying will close God’s ears to our prayers. James makes it clear—when we pray selfishly, asking God for things to elevate our status in the world’s eyes, or hoping for more favor with our friends than favor with God, God won’t answer our prayers.

On this National Day of Prayer, may we pray with clean hearts, pray according to God’s will, pray with faith that God can move mountains, and pray selflessly. It’s time to get serious about our praying.