Asians, Southerners, affluent people and older Americans are more likely to be born again today than 10 years ago, according to a new survey by the Barna Research Group.
The polling organization prepared a demographic profile of born-again America. As expected, women are still more likely than men to be born again; whites comprise three-quarters of the born-again segment; and married adults are much more likely than singles to have embraced Jesus Christ as Savior.
Education was once inversely related with faith. In other words, the more education a person had the less likely they were to describe themselves as a Christian. But according to the latest study, education no longer makes much of a difference when it comes to likeliness to embrace the Christian faith.
The most astounding growth has occurred among Asian-Americans. In 1991, only five percent of them had made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ and believed they would have eternal life because they had accepted Him as Savior. That figure has jumped by a whopping 440 percent, and today 27 percent of Asian-Americans claim Christ as their Savior.
In fact, the percentage of Asian-Americans who have accepted Christ has now eclipsed that of Hispanic-Americans (27 percent to 23 percent). The percentage of Hispanics in America who have embraced Christ as Savior has remained unchanged since 1991. Another major shift has been the increase in numbers of born-again Christians among the affluent.
In 1991, just 13 percent of all born-again adults were from households earning $60,000 or more. Today, almost twice as many born- again adults — 25 percent — hail from upscale households, reflecting a 92 percent increase during the 1990s. This increase is due to two changes: the increase in the number of households that make $60,000 or more, and an increased likelihood of people in the upper income levels accepting Christ as their Savior.
While the South has traditionally been deemed the heartland of American Christianity — as exemplified by the notion of a “Bible Belt” — the last 10 years have ushered in an era of heightened spiritual growth even in that spiritually-charged region. While there has been no increase in the likelihood of adults accepting Christ as their Savior in either the Northeast or in the West, there has been a 22 percent increase in the South.
In fact, there are 40 percent more born-again adults living in the South than in the Northeast and West combined.
The 14 states of the South contain one-third (33 percent) of the nation’s population, but almost half of America’s born-again adults (45 percent).
There has also been a sizable increase in the Midwest (28 percent growth), although its effect is not as pronounced since the population of the central states is smaller.
Since 1991, the percentage of born-again adults who are 50 or older has risen from 31 percent to 41 percent. At the other end of the age continuum, it is now even harder to penetrate the ranks of those under 30. In 1991, 28 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 had adopted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Today, just 26 percent of those in the 18-29 age segment are believers — a statistically insignificant change, but a trend at odds with the fact people in other age brackets are all more likely to accept Christ as their Savior than was true in 1991.
“While people are only slightly more likely to believe in Christ today than they were a decade ago, the fact that the nation’s population has grown by 10 percent resulted in about 10 million more adult believers than we had in 1991,” said George Barna, who directed the study.
The data described was from telephone interviews of a nationwide random sample of 1002 adults, with a maximum sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. (EP)
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