There is a new phenom called the "Nones" - that is, people who identify as having NONE when asked what their religious preference is. Now, you and I know that a personal relationship with Creator God and the Lord Jesus Christ is NOT a religion, but for the sake of argument, let's remain on the pollster's choice of word for now. Between 1950 and 2010, the amount of those "NONES" increased from 2% of the population to 16%! This is a huge, but not surprising swing in the wrong direction.
While the 1950's and 1960's saw some great crusades and many movements to Christ, due to the solid preaching of Billy Graham and the flaky Jesus Movement, America and the west were already heading in the wrong direction. It was during the 1960's that the Supreme Court kicked God, the Bible and School Prayer out of schools. When God is kicked out of anywhere, by man, we know who moves in - the god of this world, Satan. There is no need to talk about the downward spiral since the US Supreme Court did that. We see the evidence.
What should be concerning us is that today, some of these same Nones are the children of so-called "Bible-preaching churches" who grew up sitting next to us but have no clue Who the Real Jesus is.
They have no clue what the Cross means.
They are biblically ignorant.
They never pray.
They may go to one of these modern churches and raise their hands and experience who knows what, listen to some mindless pap by a just as lost "preacher" and when you look at the trends today, and the move towards same-sex "marriage", you see the fruit of all that lack of grounding in Word of God and True Truth. More so-called "evangelicals" - and I don't mean christians - believe there are more than one way to heaven than through The Way, the Truth and the Life. Yet, as George Barna just told us a few weeks ago, these people are in the majority of a group he calls "The Exiles.
The increase over 50 years of the Nones is not a surprise, but the increase of our young people losing their faith should be. In his just released research three weeks ago, Barna discovered something that should trouble us as deeply as the large amount of Nones in our midst. We know there will be a falling away from the faith in these last days. What many church leaders and parents are completely oblivious to is the effect the upbringing they allow to slip by them in church, could lead to their kids completely losing their way. It could lead to their children thrown into Hell on Judgment Day and these same parents and church leaders will have that to answer for!
This is not a joke, me being mean or judgmental. Study the Scriptures and see what the Lord has to say about all of this. In Part 3, we will look briefly at who these young people or Millennials (those who are currently 18-29 years old) are whom Barna surveyed and what they believe. For now, this group of 46 million Nones should be a clarion call for Evangelism - not raising money to go on a self-serving jaunt called a summer missions trip. It should be a clarion call to start sharing Christ, our testimonies and the way to Heaven now...and let it start with the person down the hall with whom we work...or even live with.
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