by by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – According to preliminary results of the 2020 State of Theology survey, 30% of Evangelicals and over 50% of all American adults do not believe Jesus is God, the Christian Post reports. The poll was conducted from March 10 to 18 among 3,002 US adults including 630 professing evangelicals. The final report is expected to be published on September 8.
Conducted by Ligonier Ministries in collaboration with LifeWay Research, the survey found that only 48% of American adults believe a central tenet of Christianity: Jesus is God Who came to earth as a man to shed His blood for the forgiveness of sin. The poll found that 52% of Americans and nearly a third of Evangelicals believe Jesus was simply a great teacher, the Christian Post reported.
Giving further cause for concern, around 65% of Evangelical respondents were found to agree with the premise: “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.
For the survey, Evangelicals were defined as people who agreed strongly with these four statements: “the Bible is the highest authority for what I believe; it is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their Savior; Jesus Christ’s death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin; and only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.”
Referring to the results of the poll in a statement, Stephen Nichols, chief academic officer of Ligonier Ministries and president of Reformation Bible College said: “Statistics like these from the State of Theology survey can give us quite a shock, but they also shed light on the concerns that many American Christians and churches have expressed for decades. It’s clear that the church does not have the luxury of idly standing by.”