"The research" isn't the full picture
The kingdom of God is rarely represented well in "the data" published by Barna, Gallup, or Pew.
“The imagination is like the drunk man who lost his watch and must get drunk again to find it.”
-Guy Davenport, The Geography of the Imagination
“The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.”
- 1 Peter 4:7
This “Cut for Time” post is material that didn’t fully make it into the final version of my sermon, “Christians of Another Category: Jesus Among the Ideologies.”
Pastors can be trend-chasers. Hopping from conference to conference, article to article, they’re constantly looking for the next best thing that will “work,” while quite often ignoring the ways in which the Holy Spirit is at work in the midst of their congregation.
But it’s not just the latest ministry trends that bewitch pastors. It’s also research. Pew, Gallup, Barna, and others are extremely helpful. I read almost everything that comes out from them in order to better understand our world. But the more I see “the research” quoted in sermons and social media posts, the more concerned I get that many Christian leaders opt for sociology over theology.
Sociological data must not be the primary lens through which I make decisions about our ministry here in Portland. It should inform, but never guide. Many ministry leaders get drunk with the latest data, allowing it to affect decision-making, teaching emphases, and even their attitude; the full-on embrace of trends can lead the best of us into a kind of despair. Shrewdness is needed. Here are a few reasons we must be pastorally responsible in our reading of new statistics.
Reason 1: Sociological data is tied up in the culture in which it is based.
Because sociological data operates inside and with the tools of our current sociological makeup, it therefore inherently lacks a global, theological, and socio-economically diverse picture of the world. And so, in America, it is unsurprising that most of our data is highly individualistic and self-aggrandizing.
Any statistic you read about faith involves subjects (real people) who self-identify as "evangelical" or "Christian.” As legit as Gallup or Pew is, they rely entirely on the self-identification of their subjects.1 Simply telling a sociologist or pollster “I’m a Christian” is plenty for them to write a whole study on “Christianity.”2 Anyone who is a “Christian” in a statistic is such because they said so.
Additionally, these statistics are never set inside the context of the third world and rarely include the poor. You’ll have to do that work. Is “deconstruction” actually a trend or just a trend among wealthier white people in the West? Does the majority world of Asia and Africa have the same opinions about Christianity’s strict sexual ethic as those in North America? The church is in decline in America, but what about Saudi Arabia or Brazil? How many houseless people are wrestling with doctrinal issues we are convinced will “ruin” or “make” the church in the next century? How would knowing the answers to these questions change how we read the research?
American statistics are exactly that…American. Read accordingly.
Reason 2: social statistical rejection does not equal failure in the kingdom of God.
The data will tell you: people rejecting God, leaving church, becoming less religious, and generally disinterested in the Bible they have barely read. All of these things are true, according to the data. But these are not things we should be surprised about, nor should they mean we are “failing a generation” or other alarm bells pastors love to ring.
The early church “failed” in the sense that they never held influential political/cultural power before the fourth century. Very few people in the Middle Ages actually read a physical Bible, let alone even heard it read in their own language—biblical literacy was far worse in 1124 than 2024. Poor Catholics in the 1400s in certain parts of Europe barely were allowed to receive communion. But, in all these dark periods of the church, the church really did not fail. It is actually during those periods we got some of theology’s greatest masterpieces and saw the construction of history’s most faithful monasteries. Spiritual time bears out the kingdom’s fruit, not the world’s culture.3
The so-called “failure” of the church always sets up the resurrection of the world through the gospel. Just because the data shows a decline, does not in fact mean the Kingdom of God is in decline. The seed planted in the ground must die so it can produce more seed (John 12:24-26). It was this way for the Son of God; so it will be with His church.
Reason 3: The gospel has offended every culture it has ever gone into. Are we surprised when we see stats that it is offending ours?
The West is, by in large, offended by the Bible’s sexual ethic and demands on personal wealth (among other things). The East is offended by the grace/forgiveness offered in Christ (among other things). Just because the culture is reacting to the message, does that mean we would change it? We will see data in the coming years about all the ways Christianity isn’t “working” for one slice of the populace or another. Pay marginal attention to it: the gospel is always working and “not working”—it is, by its nature, pruning and fruit-bearing, dying yet living, pressed but not crushed (Matthew 10:34-39, Romans 1:18, 2 Corinthians 4:7-16, Colossians 1:9-14).
Reason 4: Sociologists have poor accountability when they are wrong about any given “trend.”
Social scientists demand our attention when communicating a new “trend,” but are never held accountable when that trend does not prove true.
Alasdair MacIntyre has the best criticism of sociology and trend studies in After Virtue, saying that “the task of the social scientist is the production of law-like generalizations” and that this is seen as “good” and “almost always right” by most Western people. “But most sociologists and political scientists keep no systemic records of their predictions and those futurologists who scatter predictions lavishly around rarely, if ever, advert to their predictive failures afterwards.”4
We easily forget the sociological data that told us Americans rarely use personal computers and would never have one in their home, or use the Internet for research, or ever attend a church online. All of these data points were erroneous and no one ever said anything once they were proven to be so. This is probably because so much sociological research is about what people say they believe, or feel, or value. But we are often the worst people to ask about ourselves (ask our wives and neighbors what we believe and it might be more accurate). Steve Jobs was right: people have no idea what they want until you show them. Why do we read data as if they do?
Reason 5: sociological trends will never anticipate a massive move of God.
Nearly all revivals are seeded during times of massive religious cultural decline. Dark Ages are (apparently) perfect environments in which to begin a Renaissance. The economic collapse of the mid-1800s birthed massive revival in the Eastern United States. The division and darkness of the Irish and Scottish Church were the context of the Hebrides Revival. The First Great Awakening came on the heels of massive secularism and church decline of the Enlightenment period.
Why would we take sociological data as the death sentence of the Church Jesus told us he would build? Why give in to the false prophecies of doom that pollsters assure us is coming when it never has? The death of the church, the death of God, the end of religion…thousands of false prophets have written this painfully boring screed. I’m not sure they’ve ever given us reason to believe them, so I’m confused why we so often do. The very data that suggests our faith’s demise might actually be the birth pains of significant and widespread revival. At least, that’s what church history would tell us. But we don’t read our history; we’re too busy stressing about “the research.”
What should we do? I can close with a few suggestions for us as pastors, leaders, and Christians inundated with such fantastic claims:
Read the data, but not just the data. Also read theology, philosophy, fiction, poetry, and go to a museum. Listen to a record. Talk to your neighbor. Your view of reality is shaped by that which you bring in to your mind—so get a lot in there.5
Dedicate to a rich prayer life + intentional listening to your local congregation. This will breed better ministry than any new ministry trend that is reacting to a sociological study or some cultural movement. Consider taking your screen time report and at least matching it with time in prayer. Prayer walk your city and pray for congregants by name each week—even if it’s just a few.
Read church history more than sociological data. What God has done in the past is more inspiring and reliable than what might happen to culture in the future.
Develop relationships with global church leaders and receive insights from those in persecuted and poor contexts. Their wisdom is invaluable and more timeless than any trend. What God is doing in Africa might be more important than what he’s doing in America…and that is great news.
Jesus was once asked by the Pharisees when and how his kingdom would come. His reply seems important: “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:20-21, emphasis mine). Sociology is all about what is able to be observed; the gospel bears fruit in secret. Jesus told us the kingdom’s arrival will happen as yeast in bread, as seed underground, as a treasure in a field: unobserved, hidden in plain sight.
History has proved this over and over again as the faith has faced an endless stream of predictions regarding its extinction. They never came to pass. Alarm-ringing Christianity seems more resonate with pollsters than Scripture. Maybe we can also receive another teaching of Jesus when considering sociological research that promises our faith’s destruction: “beware of false prophets.”
This was pointed out by Tim Keller: Keller, “Can Evangelicalism Survive Donald Trump and Roy Moore?”, The New Yorker, December 19, 2017.
The Christian sociologist at Gordon-Conwell, Gina A. Zurlo put it plainly in a blog post, when asked “how do you know the people you count as Christians are ‘real Christians?’” Her reply: “The short answer is: I have no idea. That’s not my job. I’m a social scientist, not a mind-reader. Nor am I the judge of who’s in the “visible” or “invisible” church (thank goodness)…My job is to count people who self-identify as Christians.”
For more on the slow, beautiful, and surprising growth of the early church, see, Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Baker Academic, 2016.
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Third Edition. University of Notre Dame Press, 2007, pg. 88-89.
May I use this footnote to shamelessly plug my e-book, Reading Widely? You can get it here.