The Barna Group released findings Nov. 15 that said despite what “observers and journalists have described as … a significant trend” in terms of a Calvinism movement, numbers of Calvinists among Protestant pastors are not greater today (31 percent) than a decade ago (32 percent).
The research includes four studies conducted from 2000 through 2010, each involving a minimum of 600 phone interviews with random, representative samples of clergy.
Barna’s results about the broader Christian community seemingly stand in stark contrast to reports released by Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) entities showing a surge in identity with five-point Calvinism in Southern Baptist life.
In 2007, the North American Mission Board’s Center for Missional Research released findings that nearly 30 percent of recent seminary graduates (1998–2004) serving as church pastors identified themselves as Calvinists. Details about the sample methodology and size were not released and this study is not available for public review.
This compared to 10 percent of all pastors in the SBC who affirm the five points of Calvinism, according to a 2006 LifeWay Research study of a cross-section of 413 randomly selected SBC pastors. At the release of the research, Ed Stetzer who directs LifeWay Research, said the findings show “a growing influence” of Calvinism in SBC life and “certainly a growing influence in the graduates of our seminaries.”
Also, Christianity Today has described what it termed as a “comeback in Calvinism” in articles pointing to the SBC as “ground zero” for this resurgence and as having a “bulwark of reformed theology.”
The Barna study appears to show that despite what has been reported as a spike in the numbers of Calvinism adherents among recent SBC seminary graduates, there hasn’t been a groundswell in the broader Christian community over the last decade. The numbers of those identifying themselves with Calvinism or Reformed Theology have held fairly steady around 31 percent.
Other findings include:
- On average, weekly adult attendance in Reformed or Calvinist churches increased about 13 percent between 2000 and 2010. During that same period, weekly adult attendance in Wesleyan or Arminian churches increased 18 percent.
- Reformed churches were most common in the Northeast and least common in the Midwest. Wesleyan congregations were equally likely to be all four U.S. regions.
- A greater number of Reformed/Calvinist pastors identified themselves as theologically liberal (17 percent) than did Wesleyan/Arminian pastors (13 percent).
- Of the pastors who took part in the study, 65 percent of Wesleyans/Arminians reported having completed seminary, and a statistically equivalent 62 percent of Reformed/Calvinists said they had. (BP)
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