George Barna Reveals Only Three Percent of American Adults Qualify as Biblical Disciples of Jesus Christ

hello everybody please take a seat great to see you what what great turnout for uh we're almost in the summer season that happened quickly happy May everybody um we have an amazing guest tonight to talk all about worldview and is it's more important than ever as we see what's happening at Colombia Yale UCLA even Arizona state which by the way ASU didn't put up with any of that nonsense they cleared that out quickly as it should be to talk about worldview it's one of the most important questions which is how do you see the world do you see it through a Marxist lens a secular lens do you see it through a nihilistic lens a narcissistic lens or do you have a Biblical worldview now our guest tonight is a legend uh he has been known for multiple decades as the premier pollster let's just say sociologist uh who does surveys and analyzes data to find out what does the church believe what do Christians believe how many people who say they have a Christian worldview actually do have a Christian worldview uh this this conversation will shock you motivate you and then we'll talk about the path forward it is none other than George Barna you know that is the Barna survey or the Bara um let's just say polls for years uh he has been trying to warn people that even though there might be more more churches popping up in this country are we creating Disciples of all Nations or are we just cre creating converts of all Nations that then go away uh he is a total Legend I love speaking to him backstage and while he was uh while we were talking I said I don't have much to add so before I introduce him though I want to make sure I one quick announcement which is for those of you that might be who who here moved recently to this state uh in the last couple years anybody moved in okay I see a lot of hands up we have to make sure that all of you are registered to vote okay so if you are not yet registered to vote we will share how to do that through an online resource and the the Mr Barner will share the numbers that half of Evangelical Christians are even registered to vote and only half of those actually end up voting so we have um resources for you in the lobby we'll share for a way that happens online and coming into this fall uh Turning Point action will help lead this we're going to be doing some really big freedom night events with some big speakers Angel I'll tell you in a sec they're going to be huge and here is going to be the requirement we're going to make sure we have 100% 100% of everyone who attends Freedom night is voting and then you're not even allowed into the event in October if you have not voted early or if you not have a pinky promise plan to vote on November so we're going to make sure we have 100% voter turnout because we need Christians to vote so we just want to make sure you are registered that is the first step so if you are not registered you moved recently to the state we need you to do that it is incredibly important so now join me in welcoming the legend himself George Bara can't wait for this [Applause] conversation well Mr Barna welcome and by the way uh Mr Barna is a professor at Arizona Christian University uh which is a wonderful school here locally uh that we should really talk more about do a great job they really do well and one of the distinctives of ACU is that our focus is we want everybody to have a Biblical worldview so every course you take is taught from a Biblical worldview perspective and when you graduate the idea is what do you do with a Biblical worldview you only have it because you're called by God to be an agent of cultural transformation and so that's what we're trying to produce is more agents of transformation I love it so why don't you introduce your body of work you've been doing this for quite a while you also have a new book that I want to make sure we all support raising spiritual Champions nurturing your child's heart mind and soul but just kind of break down for our audience what you've been doing the last couple of decades what you've learned and then we'll get into some of the details okay so about 40 years ago when I started doing all of this there was really no research being done to help churches understand what was going on spiritually in America so back in the early 80s we started the barn of research group started doing all that kind of work and trying to work with pastors par Church Ministries to get a grip on reality and uh it didn't go well they they didn't like what they were hearing because they thought they were doing a great job and we had the Daya showing they weren't doing a great job and so then we we kind of shifted our Focus to what would it take for them to do a great job and that's really what I've been Focus focusing on for the last 35 years or so and and so over the course of that this is my 60th book when I do all this research I try to put it in digestible formats so that people can get their hands on it and read it and think about it and then act upon it there's no value to having information for its own sake you've got to have data that will help tell a story about what's going on in society and what you as an individual can do to change it to bring people closer to Christ that's the ultimate objective if we're not doing that we're failing amen so let's just right out of the gate how many Christians are there in America people that call themselves Christians and what number of those people are actually Christians okay so this gets a little bit messy because of definitions but people who call themselves Christians among adults in America that 66% % if we look at how many people in America will say I'm a Christian though because I know when I die I'll go to heaven because I confess my sins accepted Jesus Christ as my savior that's my only way of of uh having place in heaven that drops it from 66% down to 33 to 34% if which by the way uh we've got more people than the 66% who actually attend churches so when you look at the proportion who regularly attend church is roughly 7even out of 10 and then you look at the proportion who meet that last criteria they're going to heaven because they confess their sins accepted Christ as their savior we'll call those people born again Christian that means that most of the people in our churches are not born again why do I bring that up because if you want a mission field go to church that's where they are okay you've got tens of millions of non-christians regularly walking into our churches the sad thing is our research shows that most of those people have been walking in and out of our churches consistently for at least 10 years so whatever we're doing in church it's not bringing them closer to Christ in most cases obviously there are great churches across the country that are doing phenomenal work but I'm a sociologist as Charlie mentioned I work with data I deal with averages on average we're not Chang changing lives one of the things that I tried pastors about all the time is come on wake up the culture is changing the church more than the church is changing the culture so we've got to rethink what it is we're doing why we're doing it how we're doing it and what constitute success so to finish off answering your question 66% call themselves Christian 33 to 34% maybe born again how many of those people are disciples in America now in the Bible you probably don't know this because I haven't found a church yet that teaches this but in the Bible there are six times when Jesus said this is what makes somebody a disciple for me that's the best definition possible and so you look at John 8 he said you you will be my disciple if you obey my teaching John 13 He said you will be my disciple if you love other disciples John 15 he said you will be my disciple if you produc a lot of spiritual fruit Luke 14 he had three consecutive verses where he talked about this uh 14:26 he said you will you cannot be my disciple unless you love God Far and Away more than anything else in your life Luke 14:27 you cannot be my disciple unless you pick up your cross and Follow Me by which he meant in that Roman context you must to submit to the submit to the prevailing Authority who's the prevailing author Authority God and then in Luke uh 14:33 he said and you cannot be my disciple unless you surrender everything for me so if you look at those six criteria as I've done in the research what we find is only 3% of adults in America qualify by Jesus standards as disciples so not to be like cruel but do a lot of people who then think they're going to have probably won't go to heaven I I I I think that's a fair statement I'm not God so I don't know who's going to heaven but well just based on the biblical criteria though I this is not my opinion and your opinion just based on what the scriptures say yeah uh yeah so you got the 33% or so who say they're going there because they confess their sins accepted Christ as their savior but but then what did he call those people to do live it live it don't just get the etal life insurance actually convert it into a lifestyle where you are concerned about the lives of others you love God so much that you will do whatever you can to bring other people to the foot of the cross and have their lives completely transformed by Jesus and that will not happen by the way unless you are a disciple who makes disciples disciples they're the only people that can make disciples you you can only give what you have if you don't have Jesus fully residing within you and if you're not living completely for him you're not going to get other people to fully live for him and so disciples make disciples you want to make disciples make sure you're a disciple so let's just break this down further we Christianity has had a Renaissance in this country it it it's the one of the most popular you're laughing but by all I missed it but but by all objective measurements let's just say tons of churches buildings not no real Christian persecution as they know in the Middle East such as almost every president has called himself a Christian um almost every lawmaker 90% probably in the 20th century called themselves a Christian uh founding fathers were Christian and we have more buildings than ever before there are tens of billions of dollars raised for American Christianity every single year if you're painting then this Grim picture where 66% of people say they're Christian where we have more Christian music than ever before we have more buildings and more infrastructure and more pastors and more social media followers where did we go wrong well I I would say there are three things that we've got to look very carefully at one would be let's look at our churches themselves in our research we asked a national random sample of pastors of Christian churches is your church successful and more than four out of five of them said oh yeah I said okay great how do you know that what do you measure what's the evidence and what we found is that the typical Church leader typical Pastor measures five things how many people show up how much money they raise how many programs they have how many staff people they've hired and how much square footage they've built out now I'm a measurement guy so I'm thrilled that churches are measuring what's going on but as a measurement guy I know that if you measure the wrong stuff you'll get the wrong outcomes because you get what you measure and so we're measuring the wrong things see when I I talk about those five things that that most churches look at to determine if they're successful Jesus didn't die for any of those he didn't die to fill seats in church he didn't die for a church to have the biggest real estate portfolio in the community none of that stuff that I named is important to him what did Jesus die for people's hearts their souls that's what he died for that's what he wants and so the the counterargument that one would say is we measure how many people raise their hand and give their life to Christ at Easter yeah and my counterargument is so what you know I I mean it's it's nice that people come and they do something like that but we find that more often than not that's a show of emotion that's not a show of commitment because commitment takes a long period of time where you're willing to completely change everything in your life to honor God and so even the act of coming to church is that a bad thing no it's a good thing maybe and and and so that's not a problem but that's not the solution coming into a church building for a church event isn't the solution giving your heart to Jesus is the solution and what that means is following those six standards that Jesus talked about of you know consistently obeying his principles of loving other disciples you know not just smiling at them but you know love is a much deeper commitment than that um producing a lot of spiritual fruit not just coming in taking but going back out into the world whether it's on the church campus out in the community doing whatever you can with the gifts and the abilities and resources that God has entrusted to you you're supposed to use those to build his kingdom it's not your kingdom you're not even here for your own purposes he created you for his purposes and so you need to understand what that is and dig in and go for it what percentage of young people teenagers have a Biblical worldview we did this Study last year in writing this book raising spiritual Champions we did research with teenagers and with pre-teenagers and we were measuring their worldview and and right now only about 1% of America's teenagers it's between 1 and 2% but a little closer than 1% of America's teenagers have a Biblical worldview what is a Biblical worldview what it basically means is that you're able to think like Jesus why is that important because if you want to be a disciple what does that mean that you live like Jesus how would you get to live like Jesus that's where the connection is you do what you believe you do what you believe so your beliefs are vitally important why because you do what you believe and so if you want to live like Jesus you want to be a disciple first you've got to think like Jesus and that's why a Biblical worldview is so important that's what a Biblical worldview is believing the same things that Jesus believed how do we know what he believed it's what he taught us in his ministry it's what he passed down to the disciples who then showed us those things we've got that all in the Bible the Bible is the guide book that shows us what a Biblical worldview is so can you break down further the criteria of how you measure that uh because I'm sure some Skeptics say come on it's got to be more than 1% but you've been doing this for multiple decades you are the gold standard of this you also have tons of you you have so much data that you can then uh CR use cross tabs on over so you know your accurate you can see trend lines is what I'm getting at be and I hope you understand that when you do something for multiple decades in sociology you start to see trend lines for example if one year he says 1% of teenagers have a Biblical worldview and the next year it's 11% well then something's off right so can you speak to that eventually too because I'm sure there's some critics of your data I think his data is spoton because when you do it over a long period of time you realize that you can't fake the trends because you're surveying different people and therefore you're getting this almost the same result but can you talk about what what is the criteria of how you measure a Biblical worldview we have about 40 different questions that we utilize to look at different aspects of a person's personal beliefs but also their behavior because again you do what you believe now a lot of people have beliefs that may be in harmony with the scriptures but they don't live them out which says to me well then they don't really believe that because if they did they'd act on it you only act on the things that you think are real and right and proper and appropriate and so that's why we have those checks and balances built into this both beliefs and behavior and there are eight different categories that we measure of beliefs and behavior Bible truth and morals the character and nature of God sin salvation and Eternity I mean all these different things that we look at in terms of what is the nature of your belief structure so that's what we've been measuring over time and you're exactly right Charlie I mean when when we study the numbers after a survey is done we compare it to what came before to make sure that not only did we get a good sample a representative sample but that we can see what's going on over the course of time each of these surveys is kind of like a photograph but if you think about your family think about your children if you have children grown children in particular if you look at the photographs of them over the course of time it tells a story you can see how they've changed over time and our surveys are exactly like that we can see what's happening over time I can see that with young people I can pull out men versus women I can pull out blacks versus whites versus Hispanics versus Asians and we do all of that if you're interested in any of this I put all this for free on our website at uh Arizona Christian University it's cultural research center.com you can download all the reports but you can see what's going on in our culture and for the last 35 years I started doing this with Chuck Coulson back in the early 90s and Chuck was a mentor of mine and and and we get together and he said you know I'd love to know more about worldview and you've been studying beliefs for it was about 10 years at that point he said could you do a study for me where we start looking at at worldview and we didn't he was appalled and that's why his last major book was how now shall we live which is a takeoff on Francis Schaefer's book how then shall we live uh two great books about worldview so it it it's imperative that you be measuring the same things over the course of time so that you've got an Apples to Apples comparison that you've got a good sampling of the public and then you can really tell the story so thenen let's look at the photograph just in the last couple years what does the succession of photographs to use that metaphor look postco has America become more religious have we become more serious about our faith how does the church look differently with that succession of photographs in just the last four years one of I I think one of the most harmful things about the lockdowns was that most Americans spent an enormous amount of time paying attention to media arts and entertainment media and information and news media why do I say that's harmful because all the research that I've been doing for the last 20 years on what influences the way that we think and the way that we live indicates that the Arts and entertainment media have a majority of the impact on what we choose as our beliefs and our lifestyle and the problem with that is that as you study the messages that are being sent through those media what we find is that there's no consistency I'm not a big conspiracy guy in terms of oh there's a media conspiracy to destroy the worldview of Americans but I'm praying for him so it's okay yeah there's definitely a conspiracy to destroy the country oh no there are conspiracies I'm not saying there aren't conspiracies oh no no I I'm giving you a hard time by the way but yeah well I'm being serious okay but but but in the media I mean that their lust is power and money okay and so they'll create anything that that that gets an audience because he gives them power and money but what does not give them an audience well in their minds glorifying God raising up the Savior you know promoting biblical truth they don't think any of that would sell and so instead what we're getting are the ideas that they feel comfortable with which is Marxism secular humanism postmodernism Eastern mysticism nihilism wiah satanism and I'm not just throwing these out I study these things we have research data on these things and so I know that's what's in media and during the covid period people were more intensely exposed to those kinds of messages and they became increasingly comfortable with those kinds of messages and so you ask have we become more religious no what we found is since covid there's been a significant decrease in people's Church attendance a significant decrease in people's Bible reading a significant decrease in people's praying a significant decrease in the proportion of Americans who say that they will take time during the week to praise and worship and thank God a significant decrease in the proportion of Americans who would say that they spend time intentionally seeking to know God's will for their life well when you have that kind of a trend line in all of those critical Dimensions I mean you can't help but conclude we're definitely on the wrong path so uh let let's let's kind of get into the part of was there ever a time in your research where you saw a change of trend for the better whether it be a short period of time I don't know the answer to this if yes what would that be for for example after 911 did you see any change in the data of of how people came together or we deradicalized for a short period of time uh uh 911 didn't do that okay what what we found was that for the four weeks right after the attack Church attendant zoomed that's so that's what okay but after four weeks it didn't stick yeah there was no sustenance to so let me ask sorry to interrupt but like the Great Recession of 2008 2009 did we see any Spiritual Development Trends there no no so basically you're research has just been a basically the photograph is just like a slow motion collapse of everything good at at the end of the 80s through the mid90s we saw a a little period of time where more people became interested in Jesus so why why why was it the the out the the the climax of Billy Graham I'm interested of I don't know why to be honest yeah but we also know that by 1994 95 in that range then it went back down to the previous levels and then it's slowly declined since then it's been it's been on down the downward slope ever since yes sir so the the book is Raising spiritual Champions let's get into this so this is very heavy stuff some people would say it's awfully depressing what can we do about it and what in your research is the single or the two or three most hopeful data points in all of the very negative understandably negative yet real stuff we've talked about all right let me let me answer that this way there are three things that I think we need to pay real close attention to first and foremost is family we've got to look at parents parents in America 2% of the parents of children under the age of 13 have a Biblical worldview 2% remember what I said before you can't give what you don't have and so when I talk about the fact that only 1% of teenagers 1% of pre-teens have a Biblical worldview to me it's not surpris surprising depressing sure but it's not surprising because who's influencing them well the top influence as I mentioned is the Arts and entertainment media the second influence would be their family their parents in particular neither of those groups is going to lead them to a Biblical worldview the third one is church now we find that in America today churches aren't even in the top 20 entities in a person's wife that are having influence churches just aren't having influence can you list the top five like just I'm not not a quiz I'm just curious like what would they be like employer maybe I'm an old man I don't have much memory have mercy on me I'm guessing like employer spouse uh celebrity figure it's finals week at ACU I feel like I'm taking my final you know and I didn't study yeah uh okay so the the the top six are uh arts and entertainment mment media family uh peers schools news and information media it's five five out of six can I get a B yeah that's good maybe employer I don't know where that no that's not on the list okay no oh gosh but religious figure is not till 20 is what you're saying it's actually lower than that yeah I was trying to be kind um okay yeah yeah uh so there there and and there other ones but what that says then okay if we want to turn it around the the bad news is it's a mess the good news is but we know what's causing the mess parents are not concerned about the spiritual development of their children and when they are they use something I refer to in the book as the Outsourcing approach to Parenting and what that means this is the most common approach to Parenting in America today parents love their kids so much and yet they're so busy and overwhelmed they say you know I don't really have time to do it I don't think I could do a good job with the time I have with the lack of training I'm suffering from so what I'm GNA do I'm GNA go out and hire all the best people I can find to raise my child for me and so we hire coaches we hire tutors we drop kids off at churches we put them in private schools we do all these things that that are geared to giving our kids the best developers that we can find based on the world's standards now as I did the research on that what I discovered is that that's problematic it's nice that you love your kids it's nice that you're willing to spend the money on them the problem is almost all of those developers have non-biblical worldviews and so all the people who are raising them in your stead are giving them and Andre into the world they're teaching them that what the world says is right is right and so that's problematic so parents number one have to recognize that the Bible teaches the single most important thing that you will do in your life is love Jesus Christ with all your heart mind strength and soul the second most important thing that you will do is raise your children to do the same thing and then the third thing that you can do is bring that to other people but we've we we've we've forgotten all about that mandate to raise our children to be Disciples of Jesus and so what do we do we drop them off a church we say Church you deal with it you're the religious professionals we're Outsourcing this to you here's the dirty secret about what's going on in children's ministry in churches only 12% one out of every eight children's Pastors in America has a Biblical worldview so what that means is in seven out of eight cases we're doing more spiritual damage to children by bringing them to church than by keeping them at home it also says that if you're a parent and you want the church to help you because the church does local church does have a role in this and by the way there are some great Children's Ministries in America you know about one out of eight but you know there are some great ones so I'm not saying it can't be done I'm just saying you if you're a parent if you're a grandparent you've got to do your homework shame on you if you just bring a kid uh bring your your your child or your grandchild to a church that's fun they're not there to have fun they're not there to meet other kids they're there to meet Jesus Christ and be filled with the holy spirit so you've got to take that responsibility seriously uh I was inter today on some radio show and they said well well you know how do you do that it's like you make an appointment with the children's Pastor you sit down and you interview them and the host said well but they probably aren't going to like that said good get up and walk out I mean if they can't take a parent interviewing them about what do you think you're going to do with my child if they won't tell you that looking you in the eyes walk out of that place because it's dangerous if you like what you're hearing from the pastor then ask to see the curriculum that they're using because there's a lot of awful curriculum in churches across the country that's non-biblical it's happy talk and your children don't need Happy Talk they need truth and so you've got to make sure that the curriculum being used is biblical thirdly ask them show me the agenda for what you do during the hour you have my child if it's filled up mostly by games and singing and puzzles and crafts and all this other stuff wrong place they get them one hour a week we've got to maximize that time they want to make friends do it somewhere else you want to have fun go out in the backyard with them after church okay but when they're there make sure they're getting a heavy dose of Jesus now the other thing to keep in mind is that the only reason that a children's ministry exists is to support parents in raising the children it's not to do the job for you it's to help you do the job which means they better be willing to communicate with you throughout the week because you're the one responsible they're there to help you so those are just some thoughts so what what gives you hope again so uh that I'm an old man and I'm going home soon fair enough um I I do want to get to some questions here but let's talk about some action sorry let me do one more thing okay understand things are falling apart I I I get I I do this to everybody I'm with yeah uh what gives me hope what gives me hope is scripture okay because I read that and what I see is that God often changed entire cultures entire cities entire city states you know depending on the the polity of of the age but what we found is that God never Waits until he has majority to completely revolutionize a community okay what we find in fact um Gideon's a great example so Gideon going up against the midianites midianites have 135,000 people in their army Gideon's got a much smaller Army I think I don't remember the number but I think it was about 30,000 and God looks at this and Gideon says okay are we ready to go and God says said no you know what get rid of half your army and then and then you know okay now we they go through this until finally Gideon's left with 300 people and God says now you're ready 300 against 135,000 who were ready to slaughter Gideon and his men and Gideon and his men won why because they had God on their side so it's not about numbers this may be one of the few times you'll ever hear me say it's not about numbers okay but but the key is we've got 3% of adults in America who are genuine Disciples of Jesus we can turn this country upside down with that 3% if that 3% if that 3% is willing to get out of the armchair and go out into the world and be Jesus to a hurting son suffering confused distracted world we are the solution to their problem because we have Jesus living within us we have the Holy Spirit empowering us we have the truth of God in his word we've got the armor of God protecting us we have no excuse for not getting out and saying this is nothing we can do this we serve the Living God who's sending us into battle in this culture every day when you wake up you are waking up as a spiritual Warrior so go get it amen let's start lining up for questions guys and it was 3% of the American colonists that led the American Revolution 3% 3% so that's fitting that number that's the exact percentage based on multiple uh historical analysis 97% of Americans during the Revolutionary War wanted nothing to do with it they were and now 33% were sympathetic similar number right 33 34 33% were sympathetic 33% were loyal to the crown and 33% said I don't want I want nothing to do with it and out of the 33% 3% were the actual movers and doers and we defeated the greatest Empire the world had ever known and created the free freest Society the world has ever known so some nice parallels with some numbers there that's good all right yes ma'am uh just let's keep the questions short we haven't done we didn't do questions last month because we had Dr Gman which was the the right move to let her talk which just so so deep so great so let's get to a lot of questions I know there's a lot of uh lot waiting yes ma'am sure so there's a range of about 49 to 51% of American adults are single right now we're living in a crazy dating crisis and so my question is you used um an example of the mission field are our churches I think a lot of the people that come in and out are currently single is that on your radar for research or do you have any feedback for us I'd love some numbers to bring to congregations and see if we can get something going I didn't understand okay yeah we do see that in the data we see that number growing we see the number of people who say they don't want to get married married increasing we have a majority of people in America now who believe that sex without marriage is morally acceptable we have a growing proportion of people who say they never want to have children and so you put that all together along with uh almost seven out of 10 who say that uh you know people of the same gender marrying each other is legitimate marriage uh you know so yeah I mean we've got a real mess on our our hands with that and it it is right now getting worse could it change absolutely everything that I've talked about everything that I study is is changeable but again we've got to have the change agents who are informed who are committed and who invest themselves in the change process yeah and just to expound on that number one the fertility rate is the lowest it's ever been in America so we we are having less babies than ever before in the history of our country and it will go down significantly from here we have just started to see the plummeting uh it's below replacement level numbers uh it's at 1.7 replacement is 2.1 uh and so we are going down down down dramatically uh having children is no longer uh something that is a value this is what's very important and we learned this because in human history we considered reproduction to be a norm and that everyone wanted to have children no that's not correct what people want to do is to have the pleasure that that you get from having a child and if you have the technology to prevent you from having that child they will decide not to have the child and that's what we've learned in the last 20 years which is mind-blowing which is that children aren't inconvenience to the West that that and that you see that in the data we do and also we can make a political link here between immigration exactly that's why they want open borders because they'll say we're going to allow the third world to have kids for you because we don't want to have kids um secondly the vast Maj I would say the vast majority of young Christians that I talk to do not believe that premarital sex is wrong um I I the vast majority of churches we work with do not even teach against premarital sex and the majority of Christian schools here in Scottdale I had a mom come up to me about a local Catholic school and she says all the girls by age 16 or 17 except a couple have all lost their you know virginity basically so it it is standard operating procedure if they're you know not lesbian or gay or whatever um which by the way is one out of three kids in most urban areas are lesbian gay bisexual transgender 45% of kids at Brown University are gay and so yeah I mean this is uh not uplifting but it is true uh and then yeah I mean marriages can so young men increasingly don't want to get married because they could just watch artificial intelligence pornography you know talking to a woman is just too much work why do that uh and we we've calculated not we but the I'm sure your data is better than all of it but it's about 5 to six men 5 to six million men that have just disappeared uh they've just checked out basically they they they're not getting married they don't really have jobs they kind of live with their parents they might do a little bit of side hustles here or there and they've just gone off the grid uh we don't know where they've gone or what they're doing and uh they they want nothing to do with Society yes I was involved in a campus Bible study for a lot of years and they preached a message pretty similar to what you're preaching here tonight uh they would always specifically highlight Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34 uh they they kind of say the same thing deny yourself pick up your cross and follow me um I was I like to think of it as the start of every day you know you you're praying in the morning is that's kind of your humbling and self-denial and then you get going into the world and you you pick up your cross you start your day you go out into the world and you you follow and you share I'm just wondering um to you of those three things deny yourself pick up your cross and follow me is there is there a level of importance to those things in the way that Jesus said them and uh another question just when did you realize that there was kind of a fake version of Christianity 40 or so years ago at what age did you realize that yeah I have no no idea if Jesus had a hierarchy of priorities with those three things uh but I would say that he mentioned all three things because they all matter so it's not up to me to choose which matters I'm not saying you do that but you know clearly all three of those matter at what age did I figure out that things were going in the wrong direction pretty soon after I started doing research so the age I was 30 when I started my company so by the age of 31 I realized there there was trouble thank you yes ma'am okay um two real quick questions I think real quick one is Bible versions We were talking about say Sunday school being games um not really getting down to business are some of the Bible versions watered down too much to be effective or is that all the Holy Spirit second question my husband and I are frustrated by our Democrat Christian friends who seem to be okay with oh there are gay people and um abortion you know the poor girl that stuff can you talk to that yeah I'm happy to start so I I've I've said this uh before and I got in a lot of trouble so I'll repeat it again clearly and and I will say it more lovingly than I said it previously I do not believe you can be an actual Christian with a Biblical worldview and vote for the Democrat Party in America I do not believe you could do that now that does not mean that you are if you vote Republican you're a Christian or you get points in heaven but I do not believe believe that you can call yourself a Christian with a worldview that is rooted in scripture and vote for a party that mutilates children that there's a million abortions every single year is eradicating our Southern border and has on Easter Sunday they call it transgender visibility day and not a proclamation of the Lord's day so I don't know if that will be awfully persuasive for your friends but they might call themselves Christians and it's probably futile to dive into it and this is again we're just going based on this entire conversation of are you actually a Christian if you call yourself a Christian by the fruit you will know them and based on what scripture says I do not believe those two things can harmonize so what what can we do to respond to those people well first let me just kind of go through the ones you mentioned first they say well there are gay people well yeah there are adulterers and there are gamblers and there are fornicators we don't like doubt that there are people that struggle with sin the question is do you create a new civil rights category for every sin oh you know we have an entire month of July just for adulterers we have the month of August just for embezzlers and the month of September is for all the people that cover it and we're going to have pride for that so we recognize that they exist obviously and we have love for those people the question is is that your identity there are only two identities that matter to the Divine saved or unsaved that's it those are the only two identities that matter and if you play into this idea that your identity is in your sexual behavior well then you're you're falling short of the glory of God secondly on the abortion thing they say oh you know poor woman or whatever okay well 50% chance that it's a woman in the woman so poor woman that you're terminating and you're throwing into a trash can number two which is wait a second poor woman where where's the sympathy for the being that isn't there and how did she get pregnant in the first place again less than 1% of all abortions are by rape and incest she made a decision to engage in the act of having a child right which there's kids here so I'll be a little bit you know cryptic and vague and you have made that decision and we're now supposed to allow you to intervene and terminate another Sovereign Life made in the image of the Divine so that you can go have orgasms without a consequence like if it's your body your choice then take responsibility for your pleasure you want to go to you can see why I get myself in trouble what was the first part of your question I don't remember Bible versions yes so I think uh Mr Bara knows this better than I do but yes we did an entire podcast on this laughing and reading from the message translation and it is it is so awful and I'm not trying to make you feel bad if you read the message but you have to stop reading the message if you're reading it it is so I'll give you an example I'm paraphrasing but there's a Bible translation out there where they say Jesus went with friends to go plan a picnic and they ran out of food and next thing you know Jesus made some magic happen and the 5,000 had food you think I'm kidding that's where Bible translations are going I'm a stickler for one of two translations the King James or the new King James or the ESV those are the three that I use um not because I believe I know the coin Greek better than others but almost every major Revival that we have used the New King James Version there's something about that translation that speaks to the heart that gets people to repent and leads to Revival do you do you have thoughts on that yeah I mean there there are three different types of Bibles that get used there are literal translations there are paraphrases and there's some other term for the message I forget what it is and it is you know it might be crap I don't know yeah there you go yeah um it's just screenwriting at some point yeah I mean it's it's a creative writing class basically yeah so you know you you when you choose a Bible I mean there are guides that will help you figure out how accurate they are to the original texts that were in the Greek or the Aramaic or Hebrew or what whatever the uh the fragments were that we found archaeologically and and so if I were you I mean that that's what we do is we look at okay how accurate are these according to the original manuscripts that's what you want I mean we only because we don't read the original biblical languages do we have to use the translations that come to us today but we want translations that are as close to the original as possible thank you yes ma'am I have a question for I'm like just what's the percentage of the church that has false teaching what is the percentage of the church that holds to God's teaching that holds to false teaching holds to false that's a great question so her question is what percentage of churches will engage in what you would call false teaching I it's a difficult question for for one reason for me um and and that's because it's not black and white what I find is that churches that engage in errant Biblical teaching also sometimes provide Biblical teaching and that's what makes it even more Insidious is that I can go and for four weeks I can hear biblical messages and then week five my pastor might be off the wall scripturally but he's kind of built up my trust level which is one of the great reasons why I shouldn't be uh relying on the teaching of somebody else when it comes to scripture I need to know it well enough that what that person in the Pulpit is doing is reminding me or challenging me but not informing me I should know it well enough that I can tell when they're wrong thank you yes ma'am um hi um in this society that has a what I like to call feed me mentality Feed Me Your Truth feed me your opinion feed me your um absolutes what can we do to say skillfully say hey here's the knife and the fork you need to cut the meat and see what's raw see what's wrong with it in other words how do we give a relevant absolute truth in a world that says absolute truth is not necessary nor does it exist well one of the things that we've been studying for the last couple years I'll have a book on it coming out next year about discipling people and and that's basically what you're saying how do you disciple somebody who doesn't accept Truth where do you start what do you do and and it's important I think to understand how discipleship works it doesn't happen in small groups it doesn't really happen in church services it happens through relationships that's the way that Jesus discipled people you know that's how disciples were made in the early church so it it it it's all about developing a relationship where the person trusts you and where you have the opportunity to to share time and experiences with them and then the key is what I I refer to as Socratic dialogue the way that Socrates taught his students he didn't come in and download information to them he came in and he asked them questions what do you believe about the son why do you believe that you know what would the evidence of that be so he wasn't telling them no you're an ID idiot if you believe that let me tell you the way it works he let the person come to that conclusion simply by asking them questions and what happens so often particularly spiritually because there is truth we know truth when we encounter it you know now we may choose to reject it but God's truth is God's truth it doesn't change and it's not going away so when we have these Socratic dialogues with people if somebody wants to become a disciple or you want them to become a disciple and they're not sure they're on the fence just by having these kinds of conversations with them where you get to ask really you believe abortion is is acceptable why do you think that you know and then going through taking what they say and just asking more questions and going deeper and deeper and deeper more times than not what you discover is that that individual hears their own answers and actually comes to the conclusion wow I'm going to keep on this train because I don't want to embarrass myself but when I leave here I realize how stupid my point of view is and then they start rethinking some things now they're not going to turn like that necessarily but you've started the train moving in a different direction and that's why that relationship is so critical because you keep sharing experiences and and conversations and ideas with them and and eventually you get to lead them to truth without having to beat them over the head with the Bible or tell them that they're idiots for not buying it outright it first and I'll just say one quick thing they say they don't believe in absolute truth ask them if they believe that absolutely next question thank you Professor Broner for being here I really enjoyed um the talk and I'll definitely be getting your book um tonight um Charlie my question is actually about the college scam so I read this book a couple years years ago I've given it you know as gifts to friends and it helped us our son actually will be attending um Arizona Christian University in the fall um so thank you we used it as a guide but what I have noticed that I I have a few in my circle that are turned off by the title so could you just give me your 30 second commercial of without the title um but like why someone should read this book it's it's amazing I understand people can be turned off the title I mean because they're protective of college you know they're protective of college more than anything else more than the church it's a holy institution um because you know a lot of parents don't want to see their kids become plumbers but we love plumbers right I'm just I'm just speaking truth you know that parents be like how dare you call College a scam my kid's not going to become a welder right and so but but I I will stand by so we we thought about what can we call the the you know should we say that college is a bad idea idea should we say that college is overrated you get it so I I I stand by the title but yes here's my shtick 41% of kids that enter College will not graduate they just won't graduate of those that do graduate only half will end up getting a job that requires a college degree so they they the whole four years are for nothing outside of that you have to navigate all the rubbish that they have to learn unless they go to ACU all the nonsense all the polluted worldviews turning them into nihilistic activists and even Beyond that let's ask the question are we developing kids of good character and of wisdom or are we just creating a bunch of Highly credentialed entitled 22y olds to go around and act as if the whole world is theirs because they have a piece of paper after they had got a degree in North African lesbian poetry I think I think we know the answer to that there are 11 million job openings that pay over $75,000 a year in this country that do not require a college degree and require six to8 weeks of cert of Technical Training let me say that again this is according to the Department of Labor the Bureau of label statistics and three independent studies there are 11 million job openings that pay more than $75,000 a year that do not require a college degree that that takes six to eight weeks of technical job training why are there so many job openings because I'll end how I started because upper middle class parents in the country look down on the working class and they want their kids to be in the laptop Zoom class not in the muscular class they say God forbid that my kid will have to shower before work and after work he's going to go stay crunched in the corner at a data center in Tempe making sure he doesn't Mis pronoun his colleagues earning $68,000 a year with a degree in computer science with $60,000 of debt from ASU because college is wonderful at what point are we going to wake up and realize this is a racketeering operation that is impoverishing a generation so anyway I love the question Denise you know thank you for promoting the book you're the best and Anderson's going to do great at ACU God bless you man yes hi my name is Denine my question is for those of us that have our Jewish friends I brought a Jewish friend last time it worked out beautifully by the grace of God um with all the Jewish writing and Dr grman and and now the conversation that I've been praying for for years has opened up to offer her more information about Christ one of the things she said to me that blew me away was I haven't been told anything negative about Jesus I haven't been told anything at all and about fell over because I made the Assumption all these years that that they were just against him so so happy to respond so how serious is she in her Judaism for the Jewish people that I'm I know the woman yes she's very serious great so there there is a forbidden passage in Israel that could get you basically arrested if you talk about and it's the one you should definitely talk to her about it's Isaiah 53 Isaiah 53 is the thermonuclear weapon of the Old Testament of Prophecy and it by to the letter prophesies prophesies the entire life of Jesus in the old test scriptures at a root of dry ground he was pierced for our transgressions I'm paraphrasing part of it and it is without a doubt the most powerful and successful and most censored Old Testament verse in serious Jewish circles now you thought that some Jews don't like Jesus because in the talmud there are some very very nasty teachings about Jesus right that he's in hell with a bunch of feces right you just and not every Jew believes that but it is in the talmud which in some circles would be considered to be the Jewish New Testament but here's the cool thing is that a a Jewish woman as you say who's ready to open her heart to Jesus is one of the most important things because Paul said we must bless the Jews right to bring a Jew to Jesus I think is one of the most incredible things that anybody can do and I've I've witnessed it myself it's remarkable and you have to understand she's searching for the Messiah she has an empty chair at the Passover seder waiting for that Messiah you just have to remind her the Messiah has come and is living and rose from the dead and his name is Yeshua Jesus Christ so we'll be praying for you and praying for your friend all right we have time for one or two more we'll go to our very impressive young man here hello um big fan of you but um so we just had a um podcast about inflation and um since it's rising a lot I'm wondering if I can still have a good life like my mom and dad I love that how old are you and what's your name I'm Max and I'm 10 years old how impressive is that getting up in front of all these people it's great the answer is yes you can have a great life uh but you also your future is being stolen from you you have never voted you're 10 years old and you have leaders that hate you that are using your credit card without your consent to impoverish you and destroy your dollar your purchasing power and your fure future but despite that though you and me because we're going to be in this for a while I'm 20 years older than you um we're not going to use that as a reason to be negative or to overly point fingers we're going to overcome all of it we're going to build a better future uh and I believe that's going to start in November to be honest with you we're gonna and so great question my friend final question yes you got a is that your brother yeah that's my brother that's awesome now what's your name and how old are you uh I'm will and I'm TW 12 awesome toic what's on your mind uh so me and my brother are a part of J Alpha and we have a podcast about conservative values and we and we think that the government is stealing our future from us so I'm wondering what advice do you have for Gen Alpha first of all what's the name of your podcast I'd love to subscribe it's it's programming Lions program ing Lions yeah it's me my brother and my dad we should all subscribe to that what do you guys think we should make um your question was you believe your future is being stolen yeah and then what can we do about it essentially yeah what's your advice for Jen Alpha well well first of all to you and I mean this nons sarcastically so at Turning Point action we're going to be knocking on hundreds of thousands of doors here in Arizona because we want to see Arizona become red obviously and I deal with people all the time that are apathetic and they're like what's the point I'd love to have them talk to a 12-year-old that cares more about the country than a 65-year-old who right I mean I think that every person that says it doesn't matter I'm not going to vote you know the election is stolen as if okay you're a real tough guy for not voting because the election stolen like go look a generation Alpha kid in the eyes and tell him that tell him that his life doesn't matter and that his advocacy is irrelevant and so what you can do is that I think you are both super articulate you need to go talk to as many people that can vote as possible and remind them you're actually the reason why they should vote is to live leave a free society and a strong country for you um and I'll close with this and then I want uh Mr Barna to close us out here with some thoughts which is that far too often we realize the stakes of the game are higher than they should be have have you ever seen a chance where a 10 or 12-year-old feels convicted to a you create a podcast why do you think that is because at some fundamental level they realize that things are falling apart and collapsing that at 10 or 12 years old they're effectively taking up arms in this culture war to fight for their country that should all that should motivate you but also it should disturb you like no offense you guys shouldn't be that interested like this country should be a lot more organized than it should that you could be worried about like regular 10 or 12-y old things but you know it's not because you two have more responsibility than most of your elders do and I hate to say that it's just the way it is and honestly it gives me hope I've said this for a while gen Z Jen Alpha the young people who deal Turning Point USA we're going to have to fix a lot of the mess that has been left us and we're going to do that and both of you guys give me great hope God bless you guys thank you final thoughts yeah I know Charlie's asking me to give you a final thought let me just say this Christianity was never meant to be a religion okay it's supposed to be a movement a movement of people who love Jesus and are willing to follow him in everything they do no matter where he takes us I'm a sociologist one of the things I do is I study movements and I can tell you that there are movements that have radically changed today's America that have had 1% of the population behind their IDE ology take the gay movement okay 1% of the population has now completely Twisted the minds of the rest of the population because they had a vision they had passion they had commitment and they never gave up the Christian church in America gave up long ago and so we've got to restore that sense of calling that God has given to us that understanding of who Jesus is and what a magnificent privilege it is that we have to know him to love him and to serve him we can't just sit back and watch other people steal that away from us we can't allow them to tell us no we can't have God in this country it's his country and so we have the privilege of serving him I'm praying that everybody who's here tonight is going to go back and think about what priority is it in your life to be part of a movement of people who pledge to restore America to the heart of God that's what the church Capital C is meant to be don't get all wound up in in church small C okay nothing wrong with it it's fine but Church Capital C is what it's about that's about the community of believers who share that common love for and service of God you need to be part of that but it can't just be lip service you've got to be willing to take some hits for it Jesus promised that you will be persecuted when you do his work if you're not being persecuted maybe you're not doing his work okay so you know don't be afraid of that because he'll also protect us he'll strengthen us through that and you know what if you die serving God praise the Lord what a way to go okay there's a lot worse things you could hope for so if we're going to restore America the only way America gets restored is not by Republicans it's not by any of these other groups that we could name it's by those who know love and serve Jesus Christ putting it all on the line for him God Bless America thank thank you one more time for George Barna thank you and we will see you on June 5th which is the 12year birthday of Turning Point USA so we'll see you on June 5th everybody