Saturday, March 06, 2004
Start of a Spiritual Revival?
A considerable increase of religious activity during the last 10 years may indicate a start of a spiritual revival in the United States, according to pollster George Barna.
He termed it significant "that we are witnessing a slow but steady development of more traditional religious behavior in the Western states." Trends "usually start in the West, take hold in the Northeast, then infiltrate the interior of the nation," he explained.
A recent poll by the Barna Research Group showed marked jumps in private, rather than public, religious activity, such as prayers, Bible study and participation in worship groups.
This might suggest that groups within mainline denominations "are taking the cue from the para-church movement," said Thomas C. Oden, a professor of theology and a leader of the confessional movement within the United Methodist Church.
According to Barna's survey, the share of adults reporting they had read from the Bible during the last week -- not including Sunday service -- rose from 37 percent in 1994 to 44 percent this year. It was in this category that the increase was most noteworthy in California, Oregon and Washington state, where Bible study among residents rose from 29 to 44 percent in the last decade.
Similarly, participation in small groups for prayer, Bible study and fellowship shot up from 11 percent to 26 percent in the West, Barna reported. Nationwide, it rose from 12 percent to 20 percent.
In this context, Barna noted a phenomenon that has been observed overseas as well: Men, traditionally less religiously engaged, are becoming more involved. In the United States, their participation in prayer and other groups doubled to 18 percent in the last decade.
Another piece of evidence for a possible religious revival is the rise in the number of people who said they had prayed to God in the last week from 77 percent in 1999 to 83 percent in 2004; no data for 1994 are available in this category.
Curiously, Barna found the steepest increase in prayer activity among those who identified themselves as atheists or agnostics, where it doubled to 20 percent in the last five years.
Atheists praying to God seem an oxymoron. Yet this phenomenon has been around for almost as long as such polls have been taken, lending credence to the claim that true atheists are a rare species. In the final analysis, they may just be agnostics who don't know if there is a God but still call on him "on spec."
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