A recent study commissioned by ChristianityToday and Zondervan reveals the following cross-section of American Christians (based on a survey of 1,000 people over the age of 18). What do you think?
Active Christians 19%
- Believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ
- Committed churchgoers
- Bible readers
- Accept leadership positions
- Invest in personal faith development through the church
- Feel obligated to share faith; 79% do so.
Professing Christians 20%
- Believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ
- Focus on personal relationship with God and Jesus
- Similar beliefs to Active Christians, different actions
- Less involved in church, both attending and serving
- Less commitment to Bible reading or sharing faith
Liturgical Christians 16%
- Predominantly Catholic and Lutheran
- Regular churchgoers
- High level of spiritual activity, mostly expressed by serving in church and/or community
- Recognize authority of the church
Private Christians 24%
- Largest and youngest segment
- Believe in God and doing good things
- Own a Bible, but don’t read it
- Spiritual interest, but not within church context
- Only about a third attend church at all
- Almost none are church leaders
Cultural Christians 21%
- Little outward religious behavior or attitudes
- God aware, but little personal involvement with God
- Do not view Jesus as essential to salvation
- Affirm many ways to God
- Favor universality theology
Harnessing Chaos 
I\’m a liturgical Christian. Can you guess ahead of time what I\’m inclined to think of this, simply by going with what you\’ve posted?
Adding up the percentages gives you 100%, which leads me to think that these categories are supposed to be non-overlapping. "Active" and "professing" Christians are listed separately from "liturgical" Christians. No mention is made of the beliefs of the liturgical ones, other than the fact that they accept church authority– which would incline me, if I were Joe Cool reading this out of Christianity Today, to think that these people didn\’t have a clue what they believed at all, but just went along with whatever the boss thinks.
And from the descriptions, "private" and "cultural" Christians aren\’t really Christians. Probably quite a few readers would be inclined to think that maybe the last three categories aren\’t really Christians. After all, only the first two groups are said to believe in salvation through Jesus.
Overall– disturbing, but not too surprising, I guess. I don\’t like the distinction made between "active" and "professing," personally. Usually when people talk about a professing Christian versus an active one, they\’re hinting that this person *says* they\’re a Christian, but hmmm, I dunno, they don\’t really have their act together; not quite as pious as those active folk over there. A Christian is a Christian.
*~Kelly~*
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I agree with you. I think the categories are very simplistic and misleading. I think one can make certain inferences from the study but only with great care. I definitely caught the problem with the definition of a Liturgical Christian as well.
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