Rick Green: 0:11

Welcome to intersection of faith in the culture, it's WallBuilders. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a Biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And sometimes that topic is where the people are going, what are the what are the trends out there in the culture, and where people stand on the issues. So that will be our topic today. I'm Rick Green, America's constitution coach and former legislator here with David Barton. He's America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. And Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. All three of us appreciate you listening to the program and sharing it with your friends and family. And sometimes guys, I feel like it's the George Barna show, because we have George Barna on so much, but we do that because he has such great information. And they're constantly doing new studies, and doing great research. And so this one, today, we're going to be talking to him about the trends out there, after the pandemic, the impact that it had on people and kind of whether or not they shifted their mindset, as they saw a new role of government, and maybe less of a role of the church in too many places. And it shifted, it shifted. Not everybody, but but but some of those different I forget all the different groups, millennials, boomers, all the different groups. So that's what we'll be talking to George about today. Talking to George about today, I should say.

Tim Barton: 1:14

It's always good when somebody can help us identify who we are and maybe, maybe George can give us some insight. It certainly as we have talked about some of the fallout Alright, thank guys. We'll be right back with George Barna, from COVID, we've seen so many good things come from potentially a bad situation, which is not surprising as Christians who understand the word of God knowing that the Bible tells us God causes all things to work together for good for those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. So not surprising to see this. And yet, there were a lot of troubling things we saw as well, throughout COVID. Also people's response to COVID when people were so willing to do what they were told and embrace things and do things that seemed illogical and didn't make sense. And of course, as Barna investigates so much of the faith aspect, I'm very curious to hear what what they were able to navigate over the last several years and explore some of those faith related thoughts. It can give us perspective, maybe of what we're seeing in culture, and certainly the important part of as Christians, how can we engage in culture, once we have a better understanding of what's happening in culture around us? you're listening to WallBuilders. This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history, American patriot Paul Revere wrote to alert Americans of the impending arrival of the British, but he also sought Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock to warn them that the British were seeking their execution. Adams and Hancock were staying with the Reverend Jonas Clark in Lexington when they asked Pastor Clark if his church was ready for the approaching British, he replied, "I've trained them for this very hour, they will fight and if need be die under the shadow of the house of God." Later that morning, 70 men from his church, faced several 100 British and the first battle of the War for Independence. As Pastor Clark affirmed, the militia that morning were the same who filled the pews of the church meetinghouse on the Sunday morning before. The American church was regularly at the forefront of the fight for liberty. For more information on this pastor and other colonial patriots, go to WallBuilders.com

Rick Green: 3:36

Welcome back, thanks for staying with us. Always good to have George Barna with us. George, thanks for some time today, man.

George Barna: 3:41

Well, good to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Rick Green: 3:43

Well, we're gonna we're gonna talk about these, these differences in the in the response from these four different generations right now and how millennials have kind of kind of shifted because of the pandemic, but really all of them but before we do help me just kind of I gotta have a picture in context of what these four adult generations are. We use these terms, millennials, Gen X, baby boomers and elders. So what what am I and like, how do I know if I'm listening right now? What's kind of the rough age range there?

George Barna: 4:13

Yeah, it's an interesting question. Because if you talk to 10, sociologists, you get about 12 different answers as to what generation is, what years. The cut offs that we use, millennials are those born between 1984 and 2002. So currently, their ages are in the 20s. And basically up to about 38. Gen X we typically say is 1965 to 1983. So those are people in their late 30s through their late 50s. Baby Boomers, of course, 1946 to 1964. That's about the only generation most of us agree on and those are people in their late 50s, maybe around 58 up through their mid 70s, 75-76 somewhere in there. And then the elders, those are people born before the boomers born before 1946, so those typically will be considered people 77 or older.

Rick Green: 5:07

Okay. Okay, gotcha. So everybody out there listening, you know which category you're in at this point. But But But now what we're looking at is, is how did their views on on faith change as a result of the pandemic, as well as just just other issues? So what did you discover in this

George Barna: 5:23

Well, with millennials, you know, it's an latest study? interesting group, because there were changes. There weren't as many changes, as we saw, for instance, with Gen X. But when we looked at their changes, what we found is that they really didn't turn to their faith, to help them navigate the pandemic. To the millennial generation, they consider themselves to be spiritual, they don't necessarily consider themselves to be Christian, or deeply Christian. So as they were trying to figure out how it is that they could figure out what to do with the pandemic, they were looking to other things. They they turned primarily to their feelings. They would turn to their friends and their family but they didn't turn so much to their faith. When they did basically, what we found is that the pandemic led them to believe, you know, what the elements of the Christian faith that they're aware of, and that they might have access to, aren't very helpful. And so we saw a decline, for instance, in the number of millennials, the percentage of millennials, who believe that God is the basis of truth as revealed in the Bible, or who spent time reading or studying the Bible, during the course of a typical week, or who would be willing to attend a Christian worship service, all those kinds of things, and others were on the decline. When we looked at 24 different variables, Faith related variables, what we found is that millennials had the lowest biblical score related to 20 of those 24 variables. And the pandemic didn't really do much at all, to move them closer to God.

Rick Green: 7:08

Do you think that was or could you tell from the research, whether that was just because of the poor response of the church? During the pandemic? It didn't didn't put itself forward as, you know, the the answer and the epicenter of the community instead it shut down as well. Or was it just because for millennials, they are ready just didn't have a strong foundation? You know, Biblical foundation?

George Barna: 7:30

Yeah, Rick, it's a little bit of both, you know, I mean, what we found in the research that we did for a book called Helping Millennials Thrive, is that millennials have a very weak Christian foundation. They don't believe in the Bible, they weren't raised with the Bible, their parents didn't model Biblical lifestyle. So for them, the Bible isn't very real. They understand that it's an option for a lot of people. But it's not something that they bought into. So they don't have that they don't have mentors, or coaches, who have come up alongside them, people who they trust, who are devoted Christians that are helping them to figure it out. So that's been a real issue for that particular generation.

Rick Green: 8:13

You mentioned in the report on the on the study that that if I say this, right, syncretism is now the prevailing worldview of each generation and that these millennials are moving even more towards that. Describe-define that for us and, and why you think that became the dominant worldview?

George Barna: 8:30

Well, right now syncretism basically is where you don't have a particular coherent, comprehensive philosophy of life that you buy into. Instead, what you do is you have exposure, as we all do, to a lot of different worldviews. And you just pick and choose the elements from each one that you like. And you combine it together into your own, customized, personalized form of a worldview. So you're not buying into a Biblical worldview. You're not buying into secular humanism, Marxism, Eastern mysticism, any of the comprehensive worldviews. What you're doing is saying, "Well, I like these two or three things from Eastern mysticism. I'll combine that with these two things that I liked from Marxism. Oh I like this one thing that comes out of the Bible," and you mix it all together into this customized worldview. And that is the dominant worldview in America today, regardless of generation, regardless of whether people are churched or not. What we find is that the vast majority of people who regularly attend Christian churches possess syncretism has their dominant worldview. So, yeah, and part of the reason why that's happened is that parents in America have not prioritized or even focused on worldview development. They've let it happen by default. And what that means essentially is that the arts entertainment media in America, as well as schools and peers and to some extent, government laws and policies have become the primary way that the worldview of our children is developed. A person's worldview is fully developed by the age of 13. So what happens with children is really where you win or lose the worldview game. And we have not taken it seriously. The world has. And so our children have grown up saying, hey, you know when I watch movies and television, listen to music, read books, play video games, all of those possess a worldview. And I like some of the things they're showing me. And they're very consistent with it. So I'm gonna buy into that.

Rick Green: 10:41

So it basically is where you don't have a ... there's no rock, there's no that you're not...I think it was Benjamin Rush that said, when philosophers become unmoored from moral absolutes, and then you know, they basically go with the wind. So it's essentially their personal opinion, whatever feels good, whatever they can grab on to out there that feels good at the moment. They believed that there's no foundation that they believe is this is absolute truth is this is this really back to that simple of a thing, that it's really moral relativism instead of moral absolutes?

George Barna: 11:13

Totally. I mean, we do find that in our research that most Americans say there is no absolute moral truth, everybody has to determine their own truth. And nobody can tell me that my truth is wrong for me. If you don't like it, come up with your own truth. That's your problem. But my truth is right for me. And so what that means is that truth and worldview, values, beliefs, behavior, all become very unpredictable, and unstable in our society. Because there is no rock, there is no consistency. And the other thing that we find also, that's interesting about people's worldview, is that it's typically inherently contradictory. In other words, we believe things that don't fit together, because we don't think very deeply about it. We base our worldview on whether or not it feels right, whether or not it feels good, whether or not we think it's going to be accepted by or popular with other people. And so those contradictions are just something that we live with.

Rick Green: 12:20

I'm thinking to the, you know, in Biblical Citizenship, which you're a big part of in our in our eight week course, David talks about personal opinion trumps everything now and and what feels good. And it's almost like it was packaged in this whole tolerance thing, right? Tolerance means, you know, all beliefs are equal. And I saw some guy tweet this the other night, you know, being in is what he said, being intolerant. I wanted your view on this, he said, being intolerant is viewed as bad. But it's often what holds society together, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle push tolerance before anything else. And the results speak for themselves, we need to go back to when we shamed and pushed degeneracy out of society. Tolerance is is what people think is a good value, it's turned into a really bad value, because it's made us not want to stand against anything. Is that kind of at the heart of this as well.

George Barna: 13:08

It is. And if you think about it, basically, when you say, you know, you have to be tolerant of every perspective and every behavior, what you're essentially saying another way of putting it is I don't believe in boundaries. I don't believe in laws. I don't believe in standards. Anything goes. And when you have that, that's a different way of saying, I believe in chaos, I believe in constant turbulence. And there's nothing that can prevent us from entering that. Nor is there anything that should prevent us from living in the midst of constant chaos. Well, any thinking person, when they hear that we say, well, that's not right. That's not going to work. And yet, that's what that whole philosophy of allowing tolerance is about. It's just like a study that we're in the middle of right now. We're finding that about three out of four people who regularly attend Christian churches believe, you know, it doesn't matter what faith you buy into, as long as you have some faith that you like. Well, that's just as crazy. Because then what you're doing is you're encouraging and inviting spiritual chaos, spiritual turbulence, which is no different than the kind of cultural turbulence that we're experiencing with this whole hypertolerism movement.

Rick Green: 14:29

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I should give credit to that to that tweet when that was from a guy named Jake Shields actually a former UFC MMA fighter five time world champion, and he sees this clearly. So So George, before I let you go, I always like to look for solutions and you're seeing all of this data and all of these you know, opinions and different things out there. What do you see when you when you review all of that? What do you come to as okay, if you can tell what got us in the mess? What's the turnaround? How do we get people to say okay, there's something stronger and longer lasting than my opinion, I need to rely on these things that have been proven over 6000 years.

George Barna: 15:05

Yeah, you know, those of us who believe in the Bible, trust the Bible, are devoting our lives to living, according to the Bible, have to recognize this is our time. And so yes, we are a small minority of the population. But God always uses a remnant to turn around any group of people. And so we can no longer afford to sit back and say, "Gee, I hope my church is going to catch on pretty soon," because it won't. But we are the church. And so those of us who love the Bible, who love Jesus, who love God, and who recognize that Jesus commissioned us to go and make disciples, this is our moment in history. And so whatever else we're doing, it's almost like we got to drop everything else, and be thinking about how can I make disciples, this is now the time when I have to stand up, I have to build relationships based on trust with people who don't know Christ, who don't like the Bible, who aren't Christian who don't attend church. And I have to be the one who's going to lead them in that direction of knowing, loving, and serving Christ with all their heart, mind, strength and soul. That's the only reason those people are on earth, just like you and me. It's the only reason we're here. And so the way that we honor the life that God's given us, is we become disciple-makers. And so, this now is the time when we've got to know what we believe and why we believe it. We've got to be modeling it for other people. And we've got to be willing to build those relationships, and sit down and have these kinds of Socratic dialogues with people - not where we're telling them, they're stupid, they're wrong, they're going to hell. All of which may be true. But, you know, I mean, the reality is, we've we've got to love them into the kingdom of God, by showing them what it looks like to be a follower of Christ, answering their questions, you know, after we've posed questions, and we keep asking them why they believe what they believe, being able to answer their questions about what we believe and why we believe it, and what kind of a difference it's made, and how they can have some of that as well.

Rick Green: 17:19

I cannot I mean, that was so good. That was that that was the Great Commission, you just described the Great Commission, I mean, literally making disciples and, and teaching them to obey everything that he commanded. So good. I know I said, that was the last question. And I know you've got a granddaughter to get back to that you're blessed enough to have some time with today. And I'm taking you away from her. But last thing, if I understood, I just want to clarify that I heard this right. It sounds like you also said, because of all of this being unmoored, and not having that thought people are actually hungry for that, even though they may think they just want to be able to believe anything. There's something in us that wants something solid is did I read between the lines in what you said there that people should be hungry for this truth and knowing that there's something solid?

George Barna: 17:59

Yes, but let me put an asterisk next to that. And the asterisk indicates that when you begin talking to people about these things, they're not going to jump in and say, Aha, that magic solution, that's what I've been looking for. They don't think that's what they're looking for. Now, we know because of how God designed us, and why he made us that that is what they they're looking for. That is what they need. That is what's going to, you know, fill that emptiness within them. They realize there's an emptiness, they don't believe that Christianity or Jesus or the Bible, or being part of the Christian community is is part of that solution. So it's gonna take time and effort and love and patience, and kindness and generosity, all the fruit of the Spirit, for us to be able to bring them to that conclusion. Some of them won't reach it. Because when we pursue the Great Commission, understand that it's pursued in the midst of spiritual battle. So at the same time, that we're trying to be true to our Commander-in-Chief, Jesus, Who's called us to love these people into the kingdom, and to bring them His truth, the only real truth, at the same time, God's enemy, you know, Satan is warring against us in the minds and hearts and souls of those same people that we're trying to win over. Satan is trying to keep them away from the truth. So it's not going to be easy. Even though people are in pain. People are hurting, they're searching. We know three out of four Millennials say they don't feel like they have a sense of purpose in life. 54% of them, you know, tell us Yeah, they're struggling with mental health issues on a regular basis, you know, fear, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, all of that. And yet, they're not willing to turn their lives over to Christ. It is a battle. So we got to be prepared to settle in for the long haul, and not give up if they reject us at first. They're not rejecting us. They're rejecting, you know, that truth that God has given to them because Satan is war in their souls.

Rick Green: 20:05

And it may be that you're just planting the seed or watering the seed and God's you know, bringing somebody else around it to help, you know, because they sometimes need to hear multiple voices speaking that same truth, George, I kept you way longer than I promised. Thank you so much, man. Keep up the great work. Look forward to having you back.

George Barna: 20:20

Thank you, Rick.

Rick Green: 20:21

That's George Barna. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Tim Barton: 20:31

Hi, Friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don't know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes for parents, we're trying to find good content for our kids to read. And if you remember back to the Bible to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith hall of fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity in our faith as well. I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called the Courageous Leaders Collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers, and there's a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you'll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman. Friends, the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read into providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at wallbuilders.com. That's www.wallbuilders.com.

Rick Green: 21:29

We're back at WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to George Barna, for joining us once again, David and Tim, of course, you know, if the church recedes and is not involved, then we get you know, people looking for other answers. And so in the pandemic, when churches shut down, and they stayed quiet, and they, you know, instead of leaning in and engaging, leaned back and stayed out, people look for other solutions, and sounds like it wasn't all the I forget all the generations he listed wasn't all of them. But for some of them, they really did look for other sources as their for their answers.

David Barton: 22:01

Yeah, Gen-X, he said did really pretty well, they had good changes, but the Gen Y/ the Millennials did not do well. And in looking at how they moved away from faith, they had so much syncretism, they've got a little bit everything. I thought was interesting. He pointed to the parents, he said it's really their parents didn't know what to do with them. And I've thought that a lot recently as I've seen what's happened at school boards and what's happening with the gender movement and the transitioning, etc. Where the parents? Why don't these kids know when they're five and six years old, that there's two genders, and what the differences are. And so I've looked at the parents, but that also takes me back to the church, I don't think the church has done a real good job of training parents. I know, for generations, there used to be a lot of parenting classes that were done at churches where you dealt with that. And so now you've got a lot of parents who really don't know the Biblical approach to parenting or what to do with discipline, or how much discipline is enough? And how much is too much. And how do you how do you correct in the right way and right spirit, so you've really got some floating generations here, and what one generation's passing the to the next is weaker than what they had, which is not a good place to be in. But this is, I think, as much as anything, it's an indication of the failure of the church to impact the culture, they've not been able to make disciples of people. They've not been able to say, make disciples of one generation to make disciples of the next. And so the type of things that used to be there. And you know, the squishiness, one of the things I've kind of become focused on recently, and listening to so many pastors, when they're trying to deal with the culture, they say, now, we don't want to condemn the culture. And you know, we want to love the sinner but hate the sin and they go back and forth. And that's just not even a Biblical thought. There are so many times in the Bible that God makes clear, if you don't let go of your sin, then the hate goes from the sin to the individual. In other words, a liar. God doesn't like liars. He hates lying. But if you keep lying and lying and lying and lying, that's one of the things in Proverbs 6 it says one of the seven abominations to God, those who are false witnesses. Well, He names false witness, He didn't just name lying, He named false witnesses. So God really does have this position that look, righteousness is what's the most important. And the church today has has kind of taken the position that love is the most important thing. No, righteousness is the most important thing. If love can bring you to righteousness that's great. If judgment brings you to righteousness, that's great, but the key is righteousness, not just love and squishiness. And we're gonna all get along, etc. And I think that's where the church is really kind of fallen down.

Tim Barton: 24:22

And I would point out, I mean Dad, as you're saying, this, this is something I can imagine people right now listening, going, Wait a second, I'm not sure about this. Obviously, if we had an hour and a half to have a theological conversation, we can dive deep into this notion of balancing where Jesus said those that worship and worship in spirit and truth, there is a combination. Obviously, we've been saved by by grace through faith. There's a grace component. But But Peter says you should be holy as I am holy, quoting from Leviticus. There is something in the New Testament, that that is very clear about lifestyle about behavior, where Jesus even said that he was the vine and were the branches. And if we didn't bear good fruit, we'd be cut often thrown in the fire. Right? And this is again, I mean, I hear people want Wait a second, no, this This isn't me right you'll go back and navigate, go back and read Jesus being the vine and us being the branches, go back and ponder that for a minute. And I'm not obviously the one in charge of faith or salvation, other than, Dad, to your point we have been under a church that has taught so much grace, they have not promoted truth or righteousness, to the extent where the Bible balances things. And the Bible shows obviously there is grace. But the Bible says that God gives grace to the humble; He opposes the proud. So the Bible actually says God opposes some people, and if God opposes some people than it means those people were doing something that God did not like and God's position was clear. Now with that being said, this is where as Christians, we even have to be careful not to get into syncretism that we only pick certain parts of the Bible that we will I like this part. I don't really like that part. I agree with this. I was literally talking with someone just this last weekend, a millennial navigating their faith. And they said, Well, I like this part of the Bible. I don't really like that part of the Bible. And we'd have a hard conversation Well, then you are the one determining what is true, and you don't have an objective standard. And that's not going to work in reality. This is where we as Christians, as parents, and the church has to do a better job.

Rick Green: 26:13

Well, thanks to George Barna for joining us today. Thank you for listening. You can find out more today at wallbuilders.com. Check it out today. Get educated; get equipped; get inspired; and be the force multiplier in your community to help turn this thing around. We need you engaged folks you can take an action step today go to the website WallBuilders.com Make your contribution get you some good materials and get in the fight. Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders.