Parshall Partners

Dangerous Ignorance

         In Hosea 4:6, God charges that the people of Israel are being “destroyed because they don’t know me”. Being biblically ignorant is dangerous.

         Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research jointly surveyed over 3,000 U.S. adults for their bi-annual survey on The State of Theology, and the results, in the words of Ligonier Ministries, are “sobering” pointing to “not merely a knowledge gap but a discipleship gap” among professing Christians. Biblical ignorance and confusion are still dominant among professing Christians.  

         According to Lifeway Research, seven in 10 (71%) agree there is one true God in three Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Most (57%) say the Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being. A quarter (26%) disagree.

         Almost half (47%) of evangelicals agree that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” Almost all (94%) of evangelicals agree that “God loves all people the same way.” Regarding the statement “Everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God,” 64% of evangelicals concur. And with this statement, “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature,” 53% of evangelicals concur.  And 61% of evangelicals agree that “every Christian has an obligation to join a local church.”

         The State of Theology 2025 noted, “Many of the survey answers from evangelicals in 2025 reveal an alarming lack of biblical literacy, as well as a tendency to hold contradictory beliefs without seeming to recognize the incongruity.” The survey asked Americans about their views on God and the Bible. 68% of U.S. adults agree that God is “unchanging” and 71% agree with the biblical concept of the Trinity. Almost half (49%) of U.S. adults believe that Jesus was a great teacher but not God, down from 53% in 2022. In addition, 65% of respondents say all religions—including Judaism and Islam—are acceptable to God, and 46% say religious belief is not about objective truth.

         Only half (49%) of U.S. adults say the Bible’s teachings are 100% accurate, while 48% say it features “helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true.” 36% of respondents say modern science disproves the Bible, down from 40% in 2022. Just fifty percent say the Bible has the authority to instruct people how to live.

         Sobering is the right word.  Ligonier Ministries observed that “the survey reveals the tragic instability of modern evangelicalism – a movement that downplays doctrine in the name of unity, resulting in beliefs that don’t hold together or align with Scripture. There is confusion about the character of God, the reality of sin, and the exclusivity of Christ. These are not minor details—they are foundational truths. If we get these wrong, we don’t have Christianity at all”.

         A.W. Tozer was right when he said, “Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian”. The only way these sobering numbers will improve is by reading, understanding, and applying the whole Truth of Scripture to our whole lives.

         Those are my thoughts. I’m Janet Parshall.