The recent Barna research study that was initiated by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University had the following result reported: 48% believe a person who is good enough or does enough good works can earn eternal salvation.

This is not a statement that represents the view of Americans. It is a statement representing the view of people who are associated with evangelical churches. In other words, they go to churches where they believe that the Bible is God’s authoritative Word to us. Traditionally, to be an evangelical means that you believe you must be “born again” to be saved. The traditional view of being born again is that you are saved by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and it is by faith in that work and grace extended by God that we receive our salvation. In other words: we are saved by grace alone through faith alone.

So, it is quite concerning that only 52% of those who go to an evangelical church have some understanding of this essential doctrine of the church.

Before we explore the doctrine, let’s take some time to ask why the church is losing ground on these critical theological issues.

George Barna himself wrote: “The Christian body in America is immersed in a crisis of biblical illiteracy,” Barna said. “How else can you describe matters when most churchgoing adults reject the accuracy of the Bible, reject the existence of Satan, claim that Jesus sinned, see no need to evangelize, believe that good works are one of the keys to persuading God to forgive their sins and describe their commitment to Christianity as moderate or even less firm?” (from article in the [Baptist Press]).

This trend toward less and less doctrinal clarity has been showing itself for a number of years. The quote I just shared was from an article published in 2001! It was also a response to an equally disturbing survey by Barna.

So, the question is raised; why is there such a high degree of biblical illiteracy? Why are so many “christians” (I am using that word generously) so wrong about the essential truths of Christianity?

It begins with pastors.

While we have a lot of media and cultural influences attacking right beliefs all over the map – it is the duty of pastors to preach a clear and concise understanding of the Christian faith. It is also the duty of pastors to preach the Bible. While that may seem an obvious statement, we have been in a number of churches and watched enough sermons to know that many pastors are preaching thematic messages that are much more focused on ease of understanding and relatability then they are on “rightly dividing the word of truth.” Often the thematic messages we have heard will pull a verse or two from the Bible to “appear” biblical, but the thrust is on the theme of the message and not the text.

While the themes may be legitimate Christian themes, the issue is that the people are getting a softer message that is more designed to bring comfort and ease than it is to bring people to conviction about the truths of the gospel. So many messages feel like we are being fed pablum rather than allowing us to chew on the meat of the Word of God. Often the themes are based on personal needs and relational concerns, and not on teaching the doctrines of the church.

When this kind of teaching is what has fed so many in the church today, it is difficult for people to know how to resist the cultural onslaught of anti-christian points of view.

It is no wonder that many “christians” have no clear concern about the sanctity of human life, the rise of gender confusion, the impact of sexual immorality and immaturity, or the role of marriage and family in society. If we are not being clearly presented with a knowledge of God and what His Word teaches us, we get our beliefs and values from a worldview that runs contrary to scripture. In addition, as we are told that we need to be loving and tolerant (we are!) we confuse that to mean that we are not to take stands on issues that run contrary to the current cultural norm.

So, we need to understand a few things as we proceed with these studies.

1. The essential doctrines of the faith are NOT friendly to our culture.
2. Believing in the truth of the gospel may very well put you in a position of being rejected and even abused by friends, family, neighbors, co-workers.
3. The essential doctrines of Christianity make it clear that some people will NOT end up living forever in heaven.
4. Number 3 should be of grave concern to us because we are called to be communicators of the message that will make heaven available to them – and we should be burdened by that responsibility.
5. False teaching and beliefs are going to surround us, and we need to be ready to defend our faith and explain the reason for the hope that lies within us.

Let’s spend a minute on Number 1 as it applies to our current topic of how we are saved.

The view that we can be saved by some measure of goodness is a safe view by the worlds standards. It feels right to us. Why wouldn’t God care about our goodness as opposed to our doing wrong things? Why wouldn’t being good bring us reward? Isn’t that what makes for a better society?

Being saved by doing good also has the main component of sin built into it. Sin is essentially believing that we know better than God what we should do or believe. It is putting us before Him. If our salvation is based on doing good, then who is in charge of whether we can be saved? We are! It becomes a simple matter of our own effort. Work to be more “good” than you are “bad” and you should be just fine. So, salvation by good works fits right into the worldview of our culture. We are in charge of our own lives. We should be the only one who matters when it comes to how we live and what we think. We are the masters of our own destinies and it is up to us to make it or not.

The Bible teaches a completely different perspective. It runs in the opposite direction. So, be prepared to understand that what it means to be a Christian is not user-friendly. It will not play well in the world.