USA, September 19, 2022 (Christianity Today): American evangelicals’ grasp on theology is slipping, and more than half affirmed heretical views of God in this year’s State of Theology survey, released today by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research. Overall, adults in the US are moving away from orthodox understandings of God and his Word year after year. More than half of the country (53%) now believes Scripture “is not literally true,” up from 41 percent when the biannual survey began in 2014. “This view makes it easy for individuals to accept biblical teaching that they resonate with while simultaneously rejecting any biblical teaching that is out of step with their own personal views or broader cultural values,” the researchers wrote.
In some areas, even evangelicals responded with significant misunderstandings and were not far off from the trends in society overall. In the 2022 survey, around a quarter of evangelicals (26%) said the Bible is not literally true, up from 15 percent in 2020. They also became more likely to consider religious belief “a matter of personal opinion” and “not about objective truth”; 38 percent said so in 2022, compared to 23 percent in 2020.
[HPI adds: Among the five of the most common “mistaken” beliefs held by evangelicals in this year’s survey were two which stand out to Hindus.]
The first is that “Jesus isn’t the only way to God.” More than half—56 percent—of evangelical respondents affirmed that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Islam,” up from 42 percent in 2020. And while the question doesn’t include all religions, it indicates a bent toward universalism—believing there are ways to bypass Jesus in our approach to and acceptance by God. This contradicts orthodox theology found in the Scriptures, in which Jesus affirms that “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
The second is that “Humans aren’t sinful by nature.” Fifty-seven percent also agreed to the statement that “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.” In other words, humans might be capable of committing individual sins, but we do not have sinful natures. This response indicates that many American evangelicals believe humans are born essentially good, which leans toward a Christian heresy known as Pelagianism. This denies the doctrine of “original sin,” which is based on a number of biblical passages, such as Romans 5:12.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/september-web-only/state-of-theology-evangelical-heresy-report-ligonier-survey.html