Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Church MythBusters
My brother-in-law is fascinated with urban legends. His DVR is loaded with every episode of MythBusters ever made. He's always finding new sites on the Internet that reveal the absolute truth behind some far-fetched tale. So I'm guessing he would get a kick out of two statistics released this week, and how they shed light on a couple of church myths.
Myth #1: 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce, whether you're a Christian or not.
False, and false again. How many of us have heard a pastor use this in a sermon/rant about how bad things have become? Maybe you've even used it too. I've heard this all of my adult life, and not until the past few years (after a little digging) did I discovered how badly skewed this morbid statistic is. I won't go into all the details, but somewhere along the line—probably in the late 1970s, when the overall number of divorces really started booming—this urban legend got started. Some explanations account for the fact that when you look at the sheer number of marriages and divorces in a single year, there's a virtual two-to-one ratio. The problem is, however, this doesn't factor in all the millions of marriages still existing. Bad stat.
The Barna Group's latest study echoes this with a relatively small sampling of 5,000-plus Americans. Thirty-three percent of those polled had been divorced at least once. Among born-again Christians, that rate essentially remained the same (32 percent), while for evangelicals it dipped slightly (26 percent). Is this difference enough to prove that a walk with God automatically makes you divorce-proof? Of course not. But it also echoes the fact that significantly less—about half, in fact—people are getting divorced than what you hear.
Myth #2: Muslims are taking over the world.
OK, maybe I'm exaggerating this myth a bit, but it's the sense you get once again from many misinformed pulpits. There is some definite truth to the feeling that the Muslim world is expanding. It is, and at a rate that should prompt every Christian to a renewed level of awareness and action. You know something's going on when even the Vatican is announcing that it is "no longer at the top" and that "Muslims have overtaken us." It should be clarified that by "us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti means Catholics, who comprise 17.4 percent of the world's population. His big announcement was that Muslims have now surpassed that mark, making up 19.2 percent of the world.
Once again, let's keep some perspective on things. Although there are an estimated 1.3 billion Islamic believers worldwide, this still ranks second to Christianity at large, which, factoring in the multitude of various denominations and groupings, tops the 2 billion mark. That's about 33 percent of the earth's population. Again, I don't mean to downplay the impressive growth of Muslims in the past several years, but I also don't want to see another "wow" statistic misinterpreted.
Bottom line: Put on an investigator's hat before spouting a startling and oh-so-sexy pass-along statistic. That's hard as a pastor, given the limited time you usually have to do such research. It's much easier to just echo everyone else's latest shock tool, and it's certainly more effective in hammering home a point about the need for Jesus, revival, social revolution, etc. But given our statistic-frenzied culture, the real revolution may start with telling the truth rather than skewing it.
Myth #1: 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce, whether you're a Christian or not.
False, and false again. How many of us have heard a pastor use this in a sermon/rant about how bad things have become? Maybe you've even used it too. I've heard this all of my adult life, and not until the past few years (after a little digging) did I discovered how badly skewed this morbid statistic is. I won't go into all the details, but somewhere along the line—probably in the late 1970s, when the overall number of divorces really started booming—this urban legend got started. Some explanations account for the fact that when you look at the sheer number of marriages and divorces in a single year, there's a virtual two-to-one ratio. The problem is, however, this doesn't factor in all the millions of marriages still existing. Bad stat.
The Barna Group's latest study echoes this with a relatively small sampling of 5,000-plus Americans. Thirty-three percent of those polled had been divorced at least once. Among born-again Christians, that rate essentially remained the same (32 percent), while for evangelicals it dipped slightly (26 percent). Is this difference enough to prove that a walk with God automatically makes you divorce-proof? Of course not. But it also echoes the fact that significantly less—about half, in fact—people are getting divorced than what you hear.
Myth #2: Muslims are taking over the world.
OK, maybe I'm exaggerating this myth a bit, but it's the sense you get once again from many misinformed pulpits. There is some definite truth to the feeling that the Muslim world is expanding. It is, and at a rate that should prompt every Christian to a renewed level of awareness and action. You know something's going on when even the Vatican is announcing that it is "no longer at the top" and that "Muslims have overtaken us." It should be clarified that by "us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti means Catholics, who comprise 17.4 percent of the world's population. His big announcement was that Muslims have now surpassed that mark, making up 19.2 percent of the world.
Once again, let's keep some perspective on things. Although there are an estimated 1.3 billion Islamic believers worldwide, this still ranks second to Christianity at large, which, factoring in the multitude of various denominations and groupings, tops the 2 billion mark. That's about 33 percent of the earth's population. Again, I don't mean to downplay the impressive growth of Muslims in the past several years, but I also don't want to see another "wow" statistic misinterpreted.
Bottom line: Put on an investigator's hat before spouting a startling and oh-so-sexy pass-along statistic. That's hard as a pastor, given the limited time you usually have to do such research. It's much easier to just echo everyone else's latest shock tool, and it's certainly more effective in hammering home a point about the need for Jesus, revival, social revolution, etc. But given our statistic-frenzied culture, the real revolution may start with telling the truth rather than skewing it.
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This is a post that should be required reading for every pastor, Sunday School teacher, or person that speaks in front of others. Always check your facts before you open your mouth and proclaim it to be the truth.
I would also encourage leaders to check on the validity of "email jewels" before presenting them as a true story. I have recently heard whole sermons based upon "verified to be true" urban legends. I wonder how many pastors used the "folded napkin" story on Easter Sunday to emphasize the return of Jesus?
Allen
www.reallyrandomsite.com
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I would also encourage leaders to check on the validity of "email jewels" before presenting them as a true story. I have recently heard whole sermons based upon "verified to be true" urban legends. I wonder how many pastors used the "folded napkin" story on Easter Sunday to emphasize the return of Jesus?
Allen
www.reallyrandomsite.com
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