In Romans 12:2, the Apostle Paul encourages believers not to be conformed to this world. The Greek word, suschēmatizō, translated conformed means to fashion or according to Mounce’s Greek dictionary to assimilate oneself so that you comfortably fit in.
And a recent survey conducted by Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center is setting off alarm bells about what is happening among Evangelical pastors, as it seems a significant percentage are being assimilated by our modern culture.
The survey, entitled American Worldview Inventory 2022, asked 1,000 senior pastors their opinions on over three dozen beliefs.
This included pastors of Liberal denominations or churches who don’t believe the Bible. I would not call them either churches or pastors from a Biblical perspective, as most function as little more than social groups, and based on their declining numbers, not very good ones.
However, what is concerning are the responses of those who claimed to be evangelical, Bible-believing pastors.
The survey revealed that a significant percentage of them are starting to conform to the values of the world.
The survey found that:
- 39% did not believe there was absolute moral truth, and believed that people determined their own truth;
- 38% did not believe that ‘human life is sacred’;
- 37% believed having faith was more important than whom or what you have faith in; and
- 30% did not believe that salvation is based on confessing Christ and believing Jesus for a person’s salvation;
Franklin Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, was equally shocked by the results and tweeted a number of responses to the survey:
There is no doubt social media has intimidated many Bible-believing Christians into keeping their views quiet. A report, entitled “Perceptions on Self-Censorship: Confirming and Understanding the ‘Chilling Effect,’” released in June 2022, analyzed several studies conducted in France, Germany, Colombia, and Mexico.
It concluded that the majority of Christians practice, to varying degrees, self-censorship because of fears that their opinion will be attacked if expressed publicly.
However, this recent survey of pastors did not fall into this category, as they were shared their privately-held views on a variety of issues. There was no risk of personal exposure on what they believed.
It unfortunately revealed that many are starting to ‘conform’ to the worldview.
READ: Over a third of senior pastors believe ‘good people’ can earn their way to Heaven: survey AND ‘What a Lie’: Franklin Graham Reacts to Shocking Pastoral Survey, Lambastes ‘False Teaching… Leading People & Churches Astray’ AND Christians Are Self-Censoring Their Beliefs due to Secular Intolerance, Study Finds
OpentheWord.org 
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