The Barna Group Definition

The Barna Group is a marketing and research organization founded by George Barna, which focuses upon religion in America. On the Barna Group website, www.barna.org, Evangelicals are described as follows:

“Born again Christians" are defined as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents are not asked to describe themselves as "born again."

“Evangelicals" meet the born again criteria (described above) plus   seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended.

Also, according to the Barna Group, 38 percent of Americans describe themselves as Evangelical, yet only 8 percent meet the criteria given above.

Understanding the Evangelical Worldview

Evangelicals often talk about “worldview”. That word describes our way of looking at the world. It includes our most basic ideas about how the world functions, how we know things, how we learn things, what is important – and what is not. It covers our understanding of what is good and what is bad, what is beautiful and what is ugly. In summary, it is how our philosophy and religion affect our entire outlook.

If you want to understand Evangelicals, you must understand our worldview. Or worldviews, for there is not a single coherent view. Yet, there are certain ways we look at the world that are unique to us. If you can understand these ideas, you will be much closer to understanding us and will be able to communicate better with us.

The next few chapters will cover the Evangelical Worldview. We will cover some basic misunderstandings about Evangelical Christianity, or Christian Myths, that most non-Evangelical people have in their worldview.

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think South Korea is mostly Christian?
2. If you attend a church, which major group does it fall into?
3. Why do you think that many non-Christian academics think of Christianity as a white, European religion?