These are straight from the Barna Group and I claim no authorship to these themes. You can find the entire article at http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/462-six-megathemes-emerge-from-201
- The Christian Church is becoming less theologically literate.
- Christians are becoming more ingrown and less outreach-oriented
- Growing numbers of people are less interested in spiritual principles and more desirous of learning pragmatic solutions for life.
- Among Christians, interest in participating in community action is escalating.
- The postmodern insistence on tolerance is winning over the Christian Church
- The influence of Christianity on culture and individual lives is largely invisible.
In my experience, these are right on, except for one of them. What do you find to be the case in your community?
Related Articles
- Barna Group provides a troubling view into the religious environment of the United States. (lifeondoverbeach.wordpress.com)
- 6 Megatrends impacting the church today (westernthm.wordpress.com)
Rev. Andrew Conard 
3 replies on “6 Themes of the US Religious Environment in 2010”
I think these are a little skewed, but I’m in the context of a fast growing community, in a startup church that believes being all things to all people and serving the community in the name of Jesus to be our mantra. Maybe these were about established or “old” churches. But in our area, most of these are not true.
Pr. Andrew,
When I was attending a Baptist related university in the early 1970’s, we were warned what this study indicates would happen and thought that they were wrong, but they weren’t.
Thanks for sharing
I find these themes to be largely accurate, although I think many should be re-worded or conditioned. For example, I do not find that the Christian church is becoming less theologically literate. The Christian church is largely theologically illiterate, and this is not new. Years ago I had to explain to my parents the concept of justification by faith. Both my parents were raised in the church and attended church-run schools, yet no one had explained one of the main tenets of Luther’s writings.
The only one I see as outright incorrect in my experience is the issue of tolerance infiltrating the Christian church. I find most Christians to be reacting counter to this trend. While tolerance may be getting the press, the local Christian is continuing to reject tolerance.