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New National Poll Seeks Christian Participants
By Mark D. Roberts | Thursday, November 8, 2007
A press release from Christianity Today International:
CAROL STREAM, ILLINOIS, November 6, 2007 – A leading Christian publisher launches a new polling initiative to gauge the opinion of a broad range of Christians on theology, politics, and cultural issues in the United States. It is called NationalChristianPoll.com, and polling participants are being recruited now.
The project follows national research commissioned by Christianity Today International and Zondervan Publishers that shows diverse approaches to faith among American adults who identify themselves as Christian. The research indicates that traditional nomenclature—including “evangelical” and “mainline”—is less accurate today as Christians take an eclectic approach to theology, politics, and culture.
Up to 80 percent of Americans call themselves Christian, but their definition of the term varies widely. This research shows that self-identified Christians can be almost evenly divided into five categories based on their views of God and Jesus, the Bible, the church as a center for personal spiritual development, their involvement in church leadership, and community life.
While evangelical, mainline, and Catholic adherents were more prevalent in some categories, the diversity of denominations represented in the categories demanded that new names be developed to identify both the beliefs and behaviors of respondents. Unlike other studies, this survey did not categorize respondents based on their association with a particular denomination, but on their beliefs and resulting behaviors.
These categories are Active Christians, Professing Christians, Liturgical Christians, Private Christians, and Cultural Christians. They represent a broad range of opinion on key elements of Christian faith and practice. A detailed report appears in Leadership journal, a professional magazine for church leaders published by Christianity Today International, and is available online.
This research prompts a new polling initiative, NationalChristianPoll.com. The views of Christians are often reported as a bloc, but NationalChristianPoll.com seeks to survey the range of Christians on many issues, and to report diverse opinions held by people of common faith. The polling will provide quick assessments of current events and breaking news. Christians who wish to join the polling database can sign up at (www.NationalChristianPoll.com).
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2 Responses to “New National Poll Seeks Christian Participants”
Comments
Thanks for your willingness to make a comment. Note: I do not moderate comments before they are posted, though they are automatically screened for profanities, spam, etc., and sometimes the screening program holds comments for moderation even though they're not offensive. I encourage open dialogue and serious disagreement, and am always willing to learn from my mistakes. I will not delete comments unless they are extraordinarily rude or irrelevant to the topic at hand. You do need to login in order to make a comment, because this cuts down on spam. You are free to use a nickname if you wish. Finally, I will eventually read all comments, but I don't have the time to respond to them on a consistent basis because I've got a few other demands on my time, like my "day job," my family, sleep, etc.
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November 9th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Greetings! I went to NationalChristianPoll.com, undecided on whether or not to subscribe. I wanted to get an idea of what types of surveys and how often they would be issued. I found what appear to be past surveys under the ‘Community Voice’ tab, and the surveys seemed to deal much more with personal habits. I didn’t see anything remotely resembling current events or breaking news. Is this a new effort? Where can I get a sample of the types of surveys they will be sending? Thanks!
November 9th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Paul: Good question. Yes, it is a relatively new effort. I can’t answer your good questions about it. I have promoted it largely because I trust Christianity Today, which stands behind it. I’d expect that you can connect with them through their website.