Is the United States a Christian Nation?

Have you ever ask the question, what has happened to our culture, our moral fiber as a Nation?  This past weekend Jan & I attended a prayer conference in the Woodlands and Larry York shared statistics from the book “Bridger Generation” by Thomas Rainer.  If you have never heard of Thomas Rainer, you and I are on the same page, so this is a brief bio on Rainer.  Thomas Rainer is the president and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources.  Prior to Lifeway, he served at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for twelve years where he was the founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism.  In writing the book called the Bridger Generation, the following was part of his research for the book.

Believers by Generation (all denominations)

In a survey of 6000 people, with 1300-1500 people in each of the generations, the following percentages of each generation identified themselves as Christian.

GI and Silent generations - born before 1926, and 1927-45, respectively - 65% Christian

Baby Boom - born 1946-64 - 35% Christian

Gen X (baby bust) - born 1965-76 - 15% Christian

Older Bridgers (age 17+) - born 1976-81 - 4% Christian

The same survey showed that 83% of those who become Christians do so before age 20.

When the President of the United States said that we are no longer a Christian nation, many of us in my generations (65%) said he is crazy, but this data proves otherwise, that statement agrees with the finding of this survey.  If you return to that time of my generation, we had good guys and bad guys, we knew right from wrong, and if you have not noticed that was a time where the family consisted of 90 percent of homes that had a mother and dad, and there was an ethical teaching in the home.

You may be wondering how did we as a people lose this moral compass?  It is clear that each one of these age groups have drifted from the teaching of the church, and from knowledge of how our nation was founded, and from the very basic Ten Commandments of God.

My hope is that these findings of Thomas Rainer shock you as a parent or grandparent, and you ask God to show you how you can be part of the solution.   First, I found it is important to make sure that I ask God to show me what I need, so that I hear His voice clearly, then to show me how to pray for each of my grandsons, and those who they hang with, their teachers, and that God would put a thirst into each of these to know Him, and a desire to obey His teachings. 

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice