Who's Church Hopping?

Changing faiths: New study finds why people switch churches

According to the Sun-Sentinel, "U.S. religion is in a churn," quoting a new study which found nearly half of all adults changing faiths at least once in their lives — usually before the age of 24. "Americans change religious affiliation early and often," says the article quoting a survey, released Monday by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, called Faith in Flux. The report finds that 44 percent of the population holds a faith different from the one in which they were raised. Many people who change religions do so more than once."My family used to have Chevrolets all their lives; now I drive a Nissan," said Fred Greenspahn, director of religious studies at Florida Atlantic University. "Religion is showing the market economy at work."

No, what the survey may be indicating more than anything else is the inherent dichtomy between professing and possessing true, biblically-based Christian faith. The FAU religious spokesman at least indicated he had a clue, when he qualified that many people who switch religions may not have had strong beliefs in the first place."You'd have to ask about the nature of their commitment, and how much they're really changing. A lot of people think of religion as one thing, just different paths to the same God." That's the difference folks between heaven and hell and light from darkness. As we preach, they're may be as many as four roads to God- but they all run through Christ as the scripture teaches (John 14:6, see http://www.christcomchurch.org/knowing_god for more). The good news in all this is that many more adults are perhaps being regenerated and coming to Christ later in life, and are joining Bible-believing churches as many of us have- particularly those who came from Jewish and Catholic family traditions. I can relate to that.

Are people confused today about the gospel and where they will be going in eternity? Click on to this YouTube film clip from Ray Comfort's Living Waters web-site for a beach interview that well-illustrates the 'buffett' attitude influencing such surveys today (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq-36n_98vA ). Non-Christian religions, too, are showing the effects of a "salad bar approach" to faith, said Nathan Katz of Florida International University. He said many Americans shuttle between Zen centers, yoga classes and Kabbalah studies."We've become mobile and self-centered," said Katz, who directs FIU's Program in the Study of Spirituality.

"[Religion] has become a matter of personal fulfillment, not obligation..." When more of us, our friends and family members come face to face with sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:8-11), personal fulfillment will convert to obligation to King Jesus and church and faith hopping will be a thing of the fallen past.