Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 28, 2023


Ep 863 ｜ What Happened to Millennials？ ｜ Guest： Dr. George Barna

Topics
worldview millennials millennials' purpose and hopefulness cornerstone five arts and entertainment media
Hosted by
Allie Beth Stuckey
Guests
Dr. George Barna
Mentioned
George Barna Allie Beth Generation Z. Jesus Christ Larry Coriel Gen Z Abraham Barn
Ep 862 ｜ Can Christians Be Evolutionists？ ｜ Guest： Ken Ham (Part Two) Ep 864 ｜ Should You Attend Your Gay Child's Wedding？ ｜ Q&A

Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

163.07

Word count

6,501

Sentence count

442

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Dr. George Barna is a researcher, a Director of Research and Co-Founder of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, and a Professor of worldview at ASU. He is also a professor of worldview there. In this episode, Dr. Barna analyzes the data on the lack of a biblical worldview among millennials and discusses what it means and what we can do about it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.560 Millennials are well-educated and compared to previous generations, we've got a lot of money.
00:00:06.000 We're waiting longer to get married so we can pursue the things that we want to pursue.
00:00:10.180 We're putting off having children to make sure that we are as happy and as well-traveled as possible.
00:00:16.740 And yet, millennials are anxious. They're depressed.
00:00:20.100 They have lost faith in large part in God.
00:00:24.380 Why is this? What is the worldview that most millennials carry?
00:00:29.520 Dr. George Barna, he is a researcher, a director of research and co-founder of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University.
00:00:39.720 He is also a professor of worldview there.
00:00:42.800 He is here today to assess the data, to analyze the data with us.
00:00:46.980 We are also going to be talking about the biblical worldview, not just among U.S. adults,
00:00:51.760 but also in the church in particular, looking at some troubling stats around the lack of biblical worldview
00:00:57.280 and pastors, associate pastors, especially children's pastors.
00:01:02.360 So what does all this mean and what do we make of it?
00:01:05.140 What do we do about it?
00:01:06.800 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
00:01:09.800 Go to GoodRanchers.com.
00:01:11.040 Use code ALI at checkout.
00:01:12.200 That's GoodRanchers.com.
00:01:13.380 Code ALI.
00:01:13.920 Dr. George Barna, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.
00:01:28.300 There's only about a million questions that I want to ask you.
00:01:31.820 So, but first I want to start with, we got an email from someone who represents you.
00:01:37.700 And while there are a million questions, I want to start with this because this is relevant
00:01:42.240 to me and a large portion of my audience.
00:01:44.800 There was a recent study that you published about millennials and how we help millennials
00:01:51.180 thrive.
00:01:52.160 Very few people seem to be asking that question because definitely for the past 10 years, we've 0.74
00:01:56.500 only been hearing about how awful millennials are.
00:01:58.900 Um, I'm a millennial born in 92.
00:02:01.980 I would say a large portion of my audience, also millennials, we're moms, we're adults now.
00:02:06.900 We're not just college students.
00:02:08.300 We're figuring out life, mostly, hopefully responsible.
00:02:12.200 Um, but tell us a little bit about millennials, maybe some misconceptions.
00:02:16.060 And then what do you mean by how we can help millennials thrive?
00:02:22.980 Callie Beth, when we look at millennials, they're an important group for a number of reasons.
00:02:27.820 Everybody's important.
00:02:29.780 Yeah.
00:02:30.080 But when we look at a particular generation, this group is important because it's the largest
00:02:34.600 generation we've ever had.
00:02:36.340 It's the group that now is assuming important leadership positions in business, in government,
00:02:44.260 in churches, nonprofits, all over the country.
00:02:47.500 They're holding positions of influence.
00:02:49.660 And one of the most significant things about millennials is, as you alluded to earlier,
00:02:55.660 there are primary parenting generation.
00:02:58.540 Now, why do I think that's so important?
00:03:00.320 Because I know that the key thing in every person's life is their worldview.
00:03:05.860 Everybody has a worldview.
00:03:07.200 You need a worldview to get through the day because it's your decision-making filter.
00:03:13.420 Every decision you make runs through that filter.
00:03:16.520 And it's based on the foundations, the assumptions, the beliefs, the values that are part of that
00:03:23.480 worldview.
00:03:24.920 And so when we talk about the struggles that millennials are having, and they're plentiful,
00:03:30.580 and then talk about how can we help them?
00:03:32.840 Let's first identify some of the struggles.
00:03:35.240 One of those is that spiritually, it's the adult generation that has the lowest incidence
00:03:42.680 of biblical worldview in America's history, as best we can tell.
00:03:47.860 Certainly over the last 40 years that I've been measuring it, we know that definitively.
00:03:51.760 So we're looking at currently only two out of every 100 millennials possessing a biblical worldview,
00:03:59.860 meaning that they see the world in light of biblical principles.
00:04:04.320 They try to think like Jesus so they can act like Jesus, only 2%. 0.71
00:04:10.020 Now, what have they replaced that with?
00:04:12.900 It's something called syncretism, which means basically that there's no particular worldview
00:04:18.500 they buy into.
00:04:19.740 They're just taking bits and pieces from other worldviews, Marxism, postmodernism, secular
00:04:24.700 humanism, Eastern mysticism, all the other worldviews out there, based on the thing that basically
00:04:30.740 rules their life, which is their feelings.
00:04:34.240 Now, feelings can lead us astray more often than not.
00:04:38.460 So we've got to be very careful about that.
00:04:40.600 But we know that millennials do not believe there are any absolute moral truths.
00:04:45.340 And so that sets them up for all kinds of issues in terms of relationships, in terms of mental
00:04:52.120 health, in terms of occupational issues, all of these things and more.
00:04:58.420 So those are some of the things that we have to be aware of related to millennials.
00:05:02.460 Less than one out of five millennials, 22%, contend that life is sacred.
00:05:09.400 While half of the generation, 50%, argues that life is what you make it, there is no absolute
00:05:14.840 value associated with human life.
00:05:19.940 Now, I think that we can probably look throughout history and see what kinds of atrocities are
00:05:25.720 committed by or allowed by those who simply don't believe there is any innate value in human
00:05:32.740 life.
00:05:33.520 What's interesting about that, though, is that millennials from a very early age, as the study
00:05:39.100 notes, I mean, we have really been told that we are special.
00:05:43.240 I mean, we saw the dawn of technology, the first about me sections, all of our personalized
00:05:49.680 technology from about at least my teenage years had the letter I in front of it, our personal
00:05:55.960 profiles, our pages, the algorithms.
00:05:58.740 Everything was kind of catered to us, our personalities, what we like, what we want.
00:06:04.380 And so in some ways, the world really did revolve around us.
00:06:08.660 It's also this instant gratification of Amazon and all this stuff.
00:06:12.320 Like, we kind of came of age during this time when we were told you are special, everything
00:06:18.140 should cater to you.
00:06:19.540 And yet, at the same time, we don't believe that there is any innate value in ourselves
00:06:24.580 or innate value in other people.
00:06:26.380 It's a very strange and I think probably dangerous dichotomy.
00:06:30.680 Yeah, I think there is a bit of a shift there that's taking place where millennials look at
00:06:38.100 themselves and believe they have value.
00:06:40.840 And part of their desire, highest desire in life, it's for other people to value them as
00:06:47.840 much as they value themselves.
00:06:49.420 Interestingly, again, taking it from a spiritual vantage point, what we find is that this generation
00:06:56.180 has the largest proportion of any ever that rejects the existence or presence of some kind
00:07:03.860 of a supernatural deity, God, if you will.
00:07:07.580 And so there's actually a larger proportion of people in the millennial generation, 40%, who
00:07:14.240 are what we've taken to calling don'ts, people who don't believe God exists, people who don't
00:07:20.120 know if God exists, people who don't care if there's a God that exists.
00:07:24.880 That proportion is higher than the 35% who believe that there is a God who's all-knowing,
00:07:31.740 all-powerful, created the universe, still rules it today, is just and loving.
00:07:37.400 They reject that more often than they accept it.
00:07:39.860 And so you've got this, you know, tightrope walk that they're trying to work through, of
00:07:48.160 trying to make sense of the world, where they're at the center of everything.
00:07:52.620 They've replaced this idea of God, and now everything revolves around them.
00:07:57.620 And I hate to use the term narcissistic, but for many millennials, that's probably an apt 1.00
00:08:03.700 description.
00:08:04.900 And I don't say that pejoratively.
00:08:06.420 I say it just so that we can start to get a grip on, okay, who are they?
00:08:10.860 What are they struggling with?
00:08:11.840 And how do we address this?
00:08:13.800 And I think that point of view that everything revolves around me, I have value, but you don't
00:08:20.260 have value until you prove yourself to me.
00:08:23.640 And the way that you prove yourself to me is by admitting that I have great value and by
00:08:29.660 seeing my needs and addressing my needs, taking care of me.
00:08:34.340 So they're in a difficult situation with that point of view.
00:08:50.560 Obviously, you deal with data and have dealt with data for the past several decades, but
00:08:54.520 you also deal personally with a lot of young people.
00:08:57.400 I know you're a professor at ACU.
00:09:00.180 And so how have you seen this kind of just anecdotally, personally, this shift in generations
00:09:05.960 of worldview?
00:09:07.080 And I know the students that you have today wouldn't be millennials.
00:09:10.920 I think that they're mostly or all Generation Z.
00:09:14.260 And so I'm sure there's a little difference there even.
00:09:16.440 But as far as worldview, as far as selflessness versus selfishness, what kind of shift have
00:09:25.280 you seen as you've observed these changing generations over the past few decades?
00:09:30.480 I think one of the biggest shifts has been away from the idea that it's through a relationship
00:09:36.360 with God or Jesus Christ that I gain my goodness.
00:09:41.180 That's what makes me whole.
00:09:44.100 That's what facilitates my transformation as a human being.
00:09:48.000 As opposed to today, the idea is I am who I am.
00:09:52.680 I'm fine as I am.
00:09:54.800 I'm a good person.
00:09:56.840 And in fact, the entire label Christian has been redefined in our culture today.
00:10:03.260 I never speak about a person having a Christian worldview.
00:10:06.940 I talk about them having a biblical worldview.
00:10:10.240 And the reason for that is because we discovered through the research that now most people under
00:10:15.780 the age of 40 in America believe that to be a Christian simply means that you're trying
00:10:21.880 to be a good person.
00:10:23.020 You're doing the best you can.
00:10:24.900 And it doesn't matter if you have a relationship with God or you even believe in God.
00:10:28.900 All that matters is that you're trying to be your ultimate self.
00:10:33.000 And so I think when you have that as your starting place, that's a huge shift that's
00:10:38.260 taken place.
00:10:39.660 And when we interact with students now, that's one of the primary or initial conversations
00:10:44.300 that you want to have with them is what is their understanding of their place in the
00:10:49.340 universe?
00:10:50.300 What is their understanding of whether or not there is a God that exists?
00:10:54.240 What is his nature as opposed to your own nature?
00:10:57.720 That's a good starting place for getting an understanding of, yeah, what do we need to
00:11:03.360 maybe challenge in terms of where you're coming from in order for you to achieve what you're
00:11:10.600 trying to achieve in life?
00:11:12.080 These are not bad people.
00:11:13.960 They're just confused people.
00:11:15.640 Yeah.
00:11:16.480 Something that I found interesting in the study, too, was the sense of hopelessness or hopefulness,
00:11:21.840 rather, that millennials still retain, even after such like a low view of the value of
00:11:28.660 innate value of other life.
00:11:30.600 Obviously, I guess not believing many of them, but all people are made in the image of God,
00:11:35.700 being very confused about how they orient themselves around the world and their biblical worldview.
00:11:40.180 They still, more than Gen X, feel a sense of optimism about the future. 0.94
00:11:46.220 So, what do we do with that?
00:11:49.340 And how do we help millennials thrive?
00:11:52.060 Because there's a lot of disconnect.
00:11:53.660 As you said, there's a lot of confusion.
00:11:55.100 There's a lot of disconnect between their values and the vision that they want for the future.
00:12:00.000 Yeah.
00:12:00.860 You know, Allie Beth, a lot of the time you find that people only change when they're in
00:12:06.340 pain or in crisis.
00:12:07.840 And so, for me, part of the key thing is to recognize what millennials tell us constitutes
00:12:15.080 the source of their pain.
00:12:17.280 And that has to do a lot with, number one, they don't have any sense of purpose for life.
00:12:24.060 And so, when they get up in the morning, they're wondering, why should I get out of bed?
00:12:27.940 There's nothing really waiting for me out there, nothing that necessarily needs me.
00:12:33.720 I wish it did.
00:12:34.600 And I'd like to be part of the solution to all the crises and issues taking place in
00:12:39.600 the world, but I don't see how I fit in.
00:12:42.120 I don't know what value I add.
00:12:44.560 That's part of that absence of the mentality that my life matters.
00:12:48.860 I count, not because I say I do, but because God made me, and he made me for a purpose, and
00:12:57.140 he gave me special abilities and gifts and resources to be able to make a difference in the world.
00:13:03.520 That's what he wants me to do.
00:13:05.640 That's a perspective they need.
00:13:07.360 A second point of pain that we see with enormous numbers of millennials is what mental health 0.94
00:13:13.780 experts are looking at, which is the high rates of anxiety and depression and fear and suicidal
00:13:21.500 thoughts.
00:13:22.520 Highest rate of suicide of any generation in our history.
00:13:25.420 Why?
00:13:26.420 Because they don't have a sense of purpose in life, because they don't feel like they're
00:13:31.000 valued, because part of their goal in life, the highest goal that we find millennials describing
00:13:38.820 to us is they want maximum happiness.
00:13:42.700 Now, that can never really be your goal in life.
00:13:46.020 Your goal in life might be something that brings you happiness, but happiness itself can't be the
00:13:52.740 goal, and in fact, the biblical perspective on this will be don't, you know, gear yourself
00:13:58.060 to happiness.
00:13:59.340 Understand that God wants you to be filled with joy.
00:14:02.980 Joy is something that lasts.
00:14:05.020 Happiness is something that's fluid.
00:14:06.660 It comes and it goes based on situations and circumstances.
00:14:11.160 Joy is based on who you are and the relationships that you have and what you can take from those
00:14:17.900 relationships and add to those relationships.
00:14:21.140 And thirdly, I'd say the research also showed us that relationships themselves are a third
00:14:26.800 major point of pain for millennials, where they're saying, you know what, I don't have
00:14:31.340 lasting relationships.
00:14:33.120 Nobody is making commitments in relationships.
00:14:36.120 And so, I want to figure out how do I make something work better?
00:14:41.100 And this is partly due to the fact that they don't believe that other people have value.
00:14:45.760 They don't ascribe dignity to other people simply by virtue of the fact that God created
00:14:52.320 them.
00:14:52.900 They're alive, and therefore, they matter.
00:14:55.900 They are important.
00:14:57.560 You know, you've got to build that trust based on those foundations.
00:15:02.480 And so, I think there are some key things that we can do in terms of helping them to develop
00:15:07.100 better relationships.
00:15:08.860 And we do that by helping them to see humanity in a different light.
00:15:13.600 Yes, you want to go out.
00:15:14.760 You want to change the world.
00:15:16.580 You want to do good things to help other people.
00:15:18.840 That's great.
00:15:19.640 But why?
00:15:20.680 If you don't believe that their life matters, that they are sacred simply by virtue of their
00:15:26.500 existence, God created them, well, then why bother? 0.96
00:15:30.480 You know, it's a fool's errand.
00:15:32.560 And so, if we can go back and challenge some of their fundamental assumptions about who they 0.94
00:15:38.240 are, where their value comes from, the fact that God gives them dignity, they don't have
00:15:44.420 to, and they can't earn it.
00:15:46.600 It is simply part of who they are.
00:15:48.920 These are the kinds of discussions that when we have them with people, it's important.
00:15:52.980 I just finished writing a book about how do we raise young people to be champions in life,
00:16:00.760 to be spiritual champions, to be human champions.
00:16:03.860 And part of that is having these conversations and recognizing that it's not about me telling
00:16:10.880 millennials or any subsequent generation, your point of view is wrong.
00:16:16.300 It's about me being willing to listen to them explain that point of view, explain why they
00:16:22.720 believe it's right, and then to have Socratic conversations with them.
00:16:27.140 In other words, to ask questions about why they believe that, how that's working, what
00:16:32.140 else they've seen tried, why they don't believe those things.
00:16:35.260 Get into that deeper conversation where you're able to build that reservoir of trust with them.
00:16:41.880 And they know that I care about them.
00:16:43.880 I love them.
00:16:44.620 I want them to thrive, but I'm fearful that based on some of the points of view that they
00:16:51.580 currently possess, that's going to be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.
00:16:56.940 And so if we can have this ongoing dialogue where we think more deeply about some of these
00:17:03.540 baseline questions in life, we can really help them to enjoy life more and to add more value
00:17:10.360 to the lives of other people.
00:17:12.260 That's what they want to do.
00:17:13.720 They just don't know how to do it.
00:17:15.880 Yes.
00:17:16.420 And when will that book be published, just so everyone knows?
00:17:20.680 Yeah.
00:17:21.000 That book is called Raising Spiritual Champions.
00:17:23.400 It comes out on Labor Day.
00:17:25.160 You mentioned committed relationships.
00:17:40.400 They're less likely to get in committed relationships.
00:17:43.360 I was just reading recently that the share of U.S. adults who are married by age 21 sank from
00:17:47.740 about one third in 1980 to six percent in 2021.
00:17:52.900 Now, it's very often.
00:17:54.880 I think the average age is later 20s for women and then 30s for men, I believe.
00:18:03.700 So it's much 28 and 30.
00:18:05.120 28 and 30.
00:18:06.220 OK.
00:18:06.420 So much later than what it used to be.
00:18:09.660 And yet in real dollars, millennials actually have more wealth.
00:18:14.920 They're making more money, at least.
00:18:17.540 I should say that they're making more money than our predecessors did.
00:18:20.760 We have fewer hard assets.
00:18:23.900 We're less likely to get married.
00:18:25.800 We obviously have fewer children.
00:18:27.720 But the number of bachelor's degrees has increased dramatically since 1980.
00:18:32.420 So we are pursuing the things that we want to pursue.
00:18:36.040 We're making the money.
00:18:36.900 We're giving the degrees.
00:18:37.880 We're putting off marriage and kids.
00:18:39.420 And yet, as you mentioned, depression, anxiety, higher than previous generations.
00:18:43.640 Somewhere in there, the message that we receive just to do what you want to do no matter what,
00:18:50.400 it translated into, I think, a lot of misery.
00:18:53.860 And I'm just not sure a lot of millennials still.
00:18:56.400 I mean, the oldest millennials, you know, 40, early 40s at this point,
00:19:00.020 I still don't think a lot of millennials realized that we were misguided
00:19:03.900 and kind of went the wrong direction in a lot of ways.
00:19:07.980 Yeah, it's true.
00:19:09.100 And when we look at the studies, what we find is that people are thinking
00:19:12.240 that they're going to get that happiness that they're so urgently seeking
00:19:16.060 through their personal accomplishments, the degrees they earn, the salary, the cars,
00:19:21.460 the houses, whatever the stuff may be that they're interested in.
00:19:26.380 And yet, as they achieve those, and as you allude to,
00:19:29.900 they're able to achieve those things at younger ages than prior generations.
00:19:34.460 But they're finding it to be abundantly unsatisfying.
00:19:38.180 Unfortunately, the way they were parented,
00:19:42.240 did not give them the mindset of,
00:19:45.900 well, maybe it's because I'm looking in the wrong place.
00:19:48.140 Maybe there's a spiritual connection here that I need to check out.
00:19:52.380 Maybe there's something deeper that I've never really examined
00:19:55.960 or personally experienced.
00:19:58.200 Because again, with these two younger generations,
00:20:01.760 many of them have never been in a church.
00:20:04.220 Many of them were not raised by parents who were religious or spiritual people.
00:20:09.040 And of course, when they go to college or university,
00:20:12.560 they're in classrooms where their professors are apt to put down religion as, you know,
00:20:20.060 folly, as foolishness that a smart person would never engage in,
00:20:25.640 particularly those who are, you know, pushing Marxism or critical race theory, 0.73
00:20:29.980 some of these other philosophies.
00:20:31.260 So, yeah, it's a real challenge.
00:20:34.300 It really calls for a lot of undoing of the basic assumptions of millennials
00:20:42.380 in order for them to get on a different path
00:20:45.720 that will wind up being a better path
00:20:48.200 that will enable them to become the people that God made them to be.
00:20:52.780 And God has made every one of us to thrive in life.
00:20:57.140 That's why he gave us the Bible.
00:20:58.400 It wasn't a bunch of boundaries that tell us what you can't do.
00:21:02.640 It's a bunch of boundaries that tell us if you do some of these things,
00:21:05.400 it's going to harm you.
00:21:06.660 If you do these other things, you're going to find that it benefits you.
00:21:09.960 And so he really wants us to thrive.
00:21:12.440 He's given us the tools to do so,
00:21:15.040 including the possibility of relationships with other people
00:21:18.560 who have discovered these things and have firsthand experience about
00:21:22.540 what does it look like to be a Christian?
00:21:24.920 What does it feel like?
00:21:26.060 What do you have to do?
00:21:27.120 What do you surrender?
00:21:29.040 But what do you get in return?
00:21:30.980 Those are the kinds of conversations that a lot of millennials would love to have.
00:21:36.160 But because they don't respect religious people,
00:21:39.680 they're not willing to sit down with them and have these kind of conversations.
00:21:44.720 It might take getting to the point of so much pain
00:21:47.440 that they're willing to try something outside the box that they've created for themselves.
00:21:51.800 Yes, and very often I've seen this with people that I know in my own life.
00:21:57.500 Getting married and having kids actually has a way, it seems, of putting things into perspective.
00:22:03.780 A lot of times even just moving out of the city,
00:22:06.720 it has a way of kind of growing you up, maturing you,
00:22:11.160 making you think about things a little bit different.
00:22:13.220 There's something about the nature of commitment and sacrifice that marriage and parenting necessitates
00:22:20.400 that I think makes even these don'ts that we see among millennials
00:22:25.520 or maybe people who were raised in the church but have since left the church
00:22:29.480 start taking those things a little more seriously and start thinking,
00:22:33.260 well, you know, maybe I didn't have a great experience in the church
00:22:36.480 or I don't know what I believe, but I really want my kids to have a moral framework.
00:22:40.660 I really want to be able to trust their teachers.
00:22:43.160 I really want them to kind of have some kind of foundation.
00:22:46.500 And then that also has a way of leading parents back into the church
00:22:50.020 and into a relationship with Christ.
00:22:51.720 It's really interesting how God has like set up those institutions
00:22:55.240 and those mechanisms, I think, to draw people's heart back to Him.
00:23:00.300 Well, it's true.
00:23:01.260 And, you know, you think back over the last couple of decades,
00:23:04.040 there have been a lot of bumper stickers that I think reflect what's going on in our culture.
00:23:08.320 And that's what makes those bumper stickers popular.
00:23:11.260 And one of them is one that was very popular with millennials, question authority.
00:23:17.140 And I don't have a problem with that.
00:23:19.040 I think it's fine for us to question everything as long as we're really open to learning truth.
00:23:24.880 But one of the things that I would encourage millennials and Zs and whatever generation,
00:23:29.460 all people really to do is to question yourself.
00:23:33.200 Don't assume that you've figured out the truth.
00:23:36.040 Always be searching.
00:23:37.660 You know, you see some of the guitars in the background.
00:23:39.560 I've had the privilege of playing with a lot of different great guitar players around the world.
00:23:44.740 When I'm Larry Coriel, great jazz player.
00:23:47.200 One day we were talking and, you know, I said,
00:23:50.080 so you think you've got it all figured out.
00:23:52.600 And he looked at me and said, oh, gosh, no, George.
00:23:55.000 When I've stopped learning, I might as well die.
00:23:58.840 And, you know, I was a lot younger at the time, but that always stuck with me.
00:24:02.640 What a great philosophy of life to have of you've always got to be learning.
00:24:08.020 You've always got to be challenging yourself.
00:24:10.540 You can always do better.
00:24:12.200 You can grow.
00:24:13.040 You can invest in better ways in other people's lives, but you've got to be looking for those
00:24:19.400 opportunities.
00:24:19.980 You've got to be looking for the mechanisms, the tools that will allow you to know those
00:24:25.800 things, know how to do those things, and then to be able to move forward.
00:24:30.400 Because, you know, you go back to it and, you know, you look at the Bible.
00:24:34.100 What does it teach us?
00:24:34.840 One of the great principles is, you know, what's known as the Genesis 12 principle, where God said
00:24:41.300 to Abraham, you are blessed to be a blessing.
00:24:44.840 And so if I take every day that way, recognizing that every resource that I have has been not
00:24:52.520 earned by me, it's been given to me, it's been entrusted to me by God, so that I in turn can take
00:25:01.460 it and use it to bless other people.
00:25:03.980 That's a great way to live.
00:25:11.300 One of my favorite kinds of studies that I've seen released is about the biblical worldview.
00:25:29.420 And we've talked about, you've talked about the cornerstones of the biblical worldview.
00:25:33.840 Number one, orthodox biblical understanding of God.
00:25:37.160 Two, all human beings are sinful by nature.
00:25:39.680 Three, consequences of our sin can only be forgiven and eliminated through Christ.
00:25:44.340 Cornerstone four, the entire Bible is true, reliable. 0.78
00:25:47.680 Cornerstone five, absolute moral truth exists.
00:25:50.260 Six, the ultimate purpose of human life is to know, love, and serve God.
00:25:54.360 Cornerstone seven, success on earth is best understood as consistent obedience to God.
00:25:58.400 So it's not surprising that a minority of U.S. adults have those views, have those biblical 0.99
00:26:04.500 worldviews, especially among our generation.
00:26:06.740 But I've also seen research that not even everyone in the church understands those things
00:26:13.640 fully and the biblical implications of them.
00:26:16.000 Why do you think that is?
00:26:19.500 The culture has a tremendous influence on what we think and believe and do.
00:26:24.540 And so when we look at parenting, in particular in America, and try to figure out, you know,
00:26:32.200 what is really influencing our children?
00:26:34.280 Because understand, a person's worldview is almost fully developed by the age of 13.
00:26:40.780 Because our worldview is that decision-making filter that we need to get through every moment
00:26:46.120 of every day, because we're constantly making decisions, we start developing it at 15 to 18
00:26:51.220 months of age.
00:26:52.540 And by the age of 13, it's in place.
00:26:54.960 During our teens and 20s, we refine it.
00:26:57.280 We figure out how to apply it and articulate it.
00:27:00.060 During our 30s, 40s, 50s, early to mid-60s, we become an evangelist for our own worldview.
00:27:07.180 And then in our later years, we reassess.
00:27:09.920 We wonder, gee, how did I do?
00:27:11.440 Could I have done better?
00:27:12.300 What should I have done differently?
00:27:14.360 But you look at this whole worldview issue, and we try to figure out, well, what are the
00:27:19.560 primary influences that determine how it develops during those first 13 years of life?
00:27:26.340 And what we discovered is, by far, the dominant influence is the arts and entertainment media.
00:27:33.080 And so what happens is people watch a movie or a TV program.
00:27:37.420 They listen to a song.
00:27:38.680 They play a video game.
00:27:40.060 They read a book or magazine.
00:27:41.300 They, you know, go on social media apps.
00:27:44.940 We have all this different media input, which typically is giving us a single perspective
00:27:52.420 in a constricted period of time.
00:27:55.420 A movie, what, two hours?
00:27:57.460 But within that two hours, it may give you a consistently Marxist point of view or a consistently
00:28:03.480 biblical point of view, a consistently Eastern point of view.
00:28:06.600 I mean, it can take any point of view.
00:28:08.620 But what we know is that, generally speaking, the arts and entertainment media are not feeding
00:28:15.340 us biblical truth.
00:28:16.720 They're feeding us a secularized truth, regardless of which philosophy it stems from.
00:28:22.260 And when you are in church, maybe one hour a week, if you're really devoted, maybe two hours
00:28:31.240 a week.
00:28:32.160 But we know from Nielsen studies and other studies that people are digesting 60, 70, 80, 90 hours
00:28:41.440 of media content every single week.
00:28:44.120 Not only is it overwhelming that one or two hours a week you may have in church, and maybe
00:28:52.020 a little bit of extra time you spend personally reading the Bible, praying, doing whatever.
00:28:56.960 That media content really becomes the primary educator in your life.
00:29:02.620 It's the thing that begins to tell you, this is how life works.
00:29:07.380 And because most of us are most impressed by visual cues, when we see something in a movie
00:29:14.240 or in a little video clip on Instagram or in a television program we watch, whatever it
00:29:20.300 may be, that leaves a lasting imprint on our mind.
00:29:23.980 The brain research that's being done now is showing that that takes up space in our brains
00:29:29.800 and it stays there.
00:29:31.000 And so that becomes the force that's dictating our worldview, more so than what parents say.
00:29:37.980 And by the way, Ali, our parenting research over the last year has shown that most parents
00:29:43.200 in America no longer have the trust of their children.
00:29:46.960 So as their children are developing their worldview, they initially turn to their parents and they
00:29:53.640 want to know what their parents believe because they trust them.
00:29:56.720 But then when they hear their parents say one thing and do another, what we found is that
00:30:02.900 the conclusion that children are coming to is, you know what, in trying to figure out
00:30:07.240 the world, i.e. worldview, my parents are just as confused as I am.
00:30:12.480 They must be because they say one thing and do another.
00:30:14.920 It's inconsistent.
00:30:16.100 So I'm going to have to look elsewhere.
00:30:18.060 And that's why the media becomes so influential, because it's internally consistent.
00:30:24.740 It may not be truth, but it's consistent.
00:30:27.960 Here are some even more troubling stats that I've seen you recently comment on by the American
00:30:32.380 worldview inventory.
00:30:33.660 This was 2022.
00:30:35.520 Is that just slightly more than a third of pastors hold a biblical worldview.
00:30:43.400 37 percent, 62 percent hold a hybrid worldview.
00:30:47.200 That's syncretism you were talking about earlier.
00:30:50.080 Among senior pastors, 41 percent hold a biblical worldview.
00:30:54.160 28 percent hold a biblical worldview among associate pastors.
00:30:59.600 Seven out of every eight of children's pastors and youth pastors lack a biblical worldview.
00:31:06.120 OK, so not only do we have like a parent biblical worldview problem, but then you look at the
00:31:11.480 pastors and especially the children's pastors and most of them do not hold those cornerstones
00:31:18.300 of a biblical worldview.
00:31:20.060 That's really, really troubling to me.
00:31:23.060 Well, it should be, and I'm glad it is.
00:31:25.120 Thank you for that.
00:31:26.140 That encourages me.
00:31:27.760 You know, what I'm trying to get people to understand is that we're playing church wrong, 0.93
00:31:33.320 if you will.
00:31:34.040 What we do is we use children as bait to get adults in the door, and we try to make children 0.75
00:31:42.480 happy during the hour or so they're there because we want them to go back and tell their parents,
00:31:48.640 oh, I had a really good time.
00:31:50.040 Oh, good.
00:31:50.660 Then we'll go back.
00:31:52.420 But the problem is when we have adults, we've confused transformation with information
00:31:59.400 transmission, and so we think we're successful in ministry if people sit there and take notes.
00:32:07.520 But we know that most adults don't change.
00:32:09.860 Their worldview doesn't change much after the age of 13.
00:32:13.220 It takes some kind of a major life crisis to get that to shift and maybe, you know, the
00:32:19.540 Holy Spirit coming into their life and doing something almost miraculous in terms of bringing
00:32:24.340 about that change, really where we have influence is with children.
00:32:29.560 So it seems to me that what we ought to be doing is preparing parents to be effective in
00:32:36.580 training their children, developing their children's worldview, helping them to recognize
00:32:42.160 the key principles in the scriptures that will help them to lead a successful life.
00:32:47.460 Let's see, even in saying a phrase like successful life, that's kind of a trap too, because we've
00:32:53.480 researched that, and we know that most people believe that success in life is, again, about
00:32:58.660 what I can accomplish, what I can achieve, what I can buy, my reputation, how popular I
00:33:04.680 am, all those things.
00:33:06.480 When in point of fact, the Bible teaches us that a successful life is all about consistent
00:33:12.220 obedience to God.
00:33:14.300 So here again, we've got to retrain the minds of parents so that as they go and teach their
00:33:20.280 children stuff, and most importantly, as they model that lifestyle for their children, their
00:33:26.440 kids say, oh, I get it.
00:33:28.080 I see.
00:33:29.000 I can do that.
00:33:30.120 I'll imitate mom and dad.
00:33:31.660 It makes sense.
00:33:32.480 And, you know, parents have to have somewhere to go.
00:33:47.560 They want to go to their pastor and say, look, I've got these questions.
00:33:50.780 I've got these big theological questions.
00:33:52.440 Can you help me answer them?
00:33:53.340 Or even just basic theological questions.
00:33:55.480 Can you help me answer them?
00:33:56.700 Unfortunately, I think a lot of pastors, and I'm not trying to throw all pastors under the
00:34:00.220 bus by any means, but I think a lot of pastors, even on these very contentious cultural questions
00:34:05.240 today, but what does really the Bible say about gender?
00:34:08.220 What does really the Bible say about abortion?
00:34:10.140 What does it say about homosexuality from the culture we're hearing on social media says
00:34:14.360 the Bible says nothing about those things.
00:34:16.000 It doesn't say anything about those things.
00:34:17.620 Your worldview doesn't affect how you see those things at all.
00:34:20.080 Really, all we're supposed to do as Christians is just to love, which has been just defined
00:34:25.020 as unconditional tolerance and acceptance.
00:34:27.200 And so I think even a lot of pastors are unprepared to then disciple the parents that are discipling
00:34:33.380 the children in these very difficult questions.
00:34:36.640 So I think we just have a discipleship issue, it seems like.
00:34:42.380 We do.
00:34:43.340 And one of the surveys that we did, I've done a lot of political research over the years.
00:34:47.960 And one of the things that we had been doing for some of the presidential candidates I worked
00:34:52.620 for, was trying to figure out how do we get Christians to take seriously the issues?
00:35:00.340 Because frankly, what we discovered is most Christians vote on the basis of their feelings 0.89
00:35:05.940 about a candidate, as opposed to what does that candidate believe?
00:35:10.260 Where are they coming from?
00:35:11.820 What's the value system that's creating the policies that they're espousing and that they
00:35:16.560 want me to vote them into office to put into place?
00:35:18.820 And so we went back and we talked to church people, and what we discovered is that a huge
00:35:25.040 majority of them said, you know, the single most important thing I'd like my pastor to
00:35:30.060 do for me is not tell me who to vote for.
00:35:33.800 I'd like my pastor to teach me what the Bible says about the issues that are being talked about
00:35:40.780 in the course of the campaign.
00:35:41.960 Because we found two things.
00:35:43.880 Number one, Christians are the least likely to discuss politics with their friends who 1.00
00:35:50.720 believe differently than they do.
00:35:52.100 Why?
00:35:52.720 Because they say, I'm afraid I'm going to embarrass God.
00:35:56.100 I don't know what the Bible says.
00:35:57.780 I don't really even know what I believe.
00:35:59.720 So I don't want to get in those discussions, much less try to have influence on how other
00:36:05.000 people are going to think and vote.
00:36:06.180 And secondly, we found that most Christians were telling us, I don't know how to find that 1.00
00:36:12.720 information in the Bible.
00:36:14.340 We are incredibly ill-skilled at using the primary tool that God gave us to thrive in
00:36:21.680 life.
00:36:22.680 And so pastors need to not only teach us how to use the Bible, why we should trust the
00:36:28.460 Bible, but also help us to go to those passages that talk about the big issues of the day.
00:36:36.180 Whatever those may be, because we found out of our research that Christians said, I don't 1.00
00:36:41.520 know if the candidates' positions on crime, on abortion, on marriage, on sexuality, on
00:36:49.100 the economy, on any of these issues, I don't know if it's right or wrong.
00:36:53.280 And frankly, right now, I don't believe the Bible speaks to these things.
00:36:57.400 So I'm kind of left on my own.
00:36:59.700 And what else can I do but trust my feelings?
00:37:02.940 Hence, you have the kind of leaders we have today.
00:37:04.880 Yes, and thankfully, we have the privilege of clarity and courage in God's Word.
00:37:10.340 I think a lot of times we even fear going to God's Word for answers to many of these
00:37:15.740 questions because we're afraid that the culture is going to see us as too harsh or unloving
00:37:19.840 if we say what God really says about the dignity of human life or what He really says about
00:37:24.900 marriage and gender.
00:37:26.140 But He has given to us everything that we need for life and godliness.
00:37:29.980 And so we need pastors who simply go to the Word of God, not reaching into their own minds
00:37:36.460 and hearts for wisdom, but to go to the Word of God.
00:37:38.580 That's what millennials need. 1.00
00:37:39.540 That's what every generation needs.
00:37:40.940 That's what parents need.
00:37:41.840 That's what children need.
00:37:43.120 And thank the Lord that He has given to us His Word that gives us so much clarity.
00:37:48.580 Thank you so much, Dr. Barna.
00:37:51.280 I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.
00:37:53.720 Is there any last message or last encouragement, either is for parents of these adult millennials
00:38:00.340 today to keep encouraging their kids or for millennials who have become parents ourselves?
00:38:05.760 Yeah.
00:38:06.140 You know, we're living in confusing times.
00:38:08.920 And I mean, that's part of the strategy of God's enemy.
00:38:11.480 Let's confuse people.
00:38:12.480 Let's make life chaotic and turbulent.
00:38:14.760 But God knew that was coming.
00:38:17.560 And that's part of the reason why we have the Bible.
00:38:20.540 If we're willing to take the time to learn how to use it and to take the time to consistently
00:38:26.980 use it and then to apply what we learn to how we live, and maybe we need to talk to some other
00:38:33.360 believers who are more skilled in Bible study activities and interpretation, that's fine.
00:38:41.580 That's a great thing to do.
00:38:42.520 That's what the body of Christ is meant to be.
00:38:45.160 It's not about institutions and events.
00:38:47.480 It's about relationships.
00:38:49.620 And so the more that we can recognize, you know, God does love me.
00:38:54.740 God did put me here to make a difference in the world.
00:38:58.380 God wants me to succeed and to thrive.
00:39:01.160 And He wants it so badly.
00:39:02.920 He gave me the mechanisms and the tools that I need to do that.
00:39:07.240 It's just up to us as to whether or not we're going to take advantage of those.
00:39:10.540 But if we're willing to do that, this could be the greatest time in human history to be
00:39:16.420 alive.
00:39:17.160 Because you look at all the pain, all the suffering, all the questions, all the confusion
00:39:22.580 that's out there.
00:39:23.820 These are all opportunities for God's people to say, no, no, no, wait.
00:39:28.320 God has an answer.
00:39:29.760 And let me share it with you.
00:39:31.280 And together we can pursue that.
00:39:33.040 And we can do great things and see everything turn out better.
00:39:36.440 That's a great possibility if we're willing to pursue it.
00:39:40.240 Yes.
00:39:40.640 And amen.
00:39:41.140 Thank you so much, Dr. Barn.
00:39:42.360 I really appreciate it.
00:39:43.640 And again, Raising Spiritual Champions, that book will be out Labor Day.
00:39:47.460 Thank you so much.
00:39:49.340 Thank you.
00:39:49.920 Thank you.
00:39:49.940 Thank you.
00:39:49.960 Thank you.
00:39:50.000 Thank you.