The State of Theology is a treasure trove of data to read into for gauging the theological understanding of society, community, or even your congregation. And the finding were as Spock would say “fascinating.” There was very little logic among the results. On some questions, orthodoxy was very well maintained. On others, even evangelicals stratified by belief majorly contradicted well-known Bible verses such as John 14:6. The inconsistencies were both amazing and frustrating at the same time. And I will want to break many of these down in their own articles. But let’s focus on the “key findings.” Read the key findings here. My own analysis does not count somewhat agrees/disagrees on obvious theological issues.
One one hand Evangelicals are trending towards believing that science does not contradict the Bible (60% in 2018 to 69% in 2020). On the other hand, only 34% of Evangelicals strongly believe in the doctrine of total depravity. 33% did not strongly disagree to gender identity being a choice. Yet in all of these failings, there seems to be improvement from the 2018 State of Theology. It seems that there is a demand for deeper theological knowledge. But there are still many heresies that are purposefully or accidentally popular, like Arianism, religious pluralism, and the Prosperity Gospel.
