Pew and Lutherans

(from Mollie) Gene Veith pointed the way to a few other bloggers who have been looking at the LCMS-specific numbers coming out of that massive Pew report on religion in America:

The survey found that only 84% are absolutely certain there is a god; 12% are fairly certain.
9% seldom go to church; 2% never do.
Only 42% said the Bible should be taken literally.
28% believe there is one correct way to interpret scripture.

I gather that the assorted bloggers thought these numbers were bad. Actually, I’m not so sure. The percentage of people not going to church is very low compared to other churches and it’s somewhat out of our line of thinking to expect sinful people to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy 100 percent of the time.

As for the other figures, I kind of think the questions are bad. I wrote a little bit about this elsewhere, but here is just one of the questions that Pew asked:

Do you think there is a heaven, where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded?

How would you answer that question? Yes? No? I believe in heaven — I don’t believe in people in people who have led good lives.

Another question asked people if they believe in a “literal” interpretation of Scripture. We hopefully all believe the Bible is the word of God. But do you believe in a “literal” thousand year reign? Do you believe Jesus is literally a door?

I think the survey had some serious limitations. But what do you think of the results?

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