Thursday, September 24, 2009

Statistics and Christianity

It has been said that there is no significant statistical difference between the Christians and non-Christians. As with any statistics, this doesn't really tell us much. As Mark Twain said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." I think he meant that numbers can be persuasive, but they are not always reliable.

Still, statistically Christians should look different from the society in general. Consider the following:

IF real Christians are defined by faith in Christ AND
IF faith in Christ produces tangible changes (such as obedience to His commands)
THEN somehow Christians should be statistically different from non-Christians.

SO, in regard to behavior touching on the morality and ethical behavior taught by Christ,

IF there is no statistical difference between the visible Christian church and the rest of the culture,
THEN within statistical error, there are about as many real Christians in the visible Church as there are in the rest of the culture.

Stated another way, there is about the same proportion of non-believers in the visible church as there is in the general society. A sobering thought.

No comments:

Post a Comment