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Lizette Beard: [00:00] Podcasting from Nashville, Tennessee, this is “Keep Asking,” the weekly podcast that helps you dive in a bit deeper and wider into the research providing insight into today’s church and culture.
Lizette: [00:33] I’m here today with my colleagues Scott McConnell and Casey Oliver today to talk about sin. I will be super disappointed if this isn’t one of our most downloaded episodes ever.
[00:46] Welcome back, guys. Everybody doing great?Scott McConnell: [00:48] Doing good.
Casey Oliver: [00:49] Yep.
Lizette: [00:49] How excited are the three of us about getting to discuss such a saucy topic today?
Scott: [00:55] It’s one of those terms people throw around. Why not find out what it really means?
Lizette: [01:01] How about you, Casey? A little nervous, a little edgy not knowing where we’re going to go with this?
Casey: [01:07] Yeah, a little.
Lizette: [01:08] I forgot to tell you guys. We have a sponsor this week. We’re doing giveaways of the CSB, so let me do my “I’m reading from a sponsor” voice.
[01:21] The sponsor for this week’s episode is the Bible, the Christian Standard Bible. The Bible is meant to be read, understood, and shared, so your translation of God’s word should be true to the original and one you like to read. [01:35] The Christian Standard Bible captures the Bible’s original meaning without compromising clarity. An optimal blend of accuracy and readability, this translation helps readers make a deeper connection with God’s word and inspires lifelong discipleship. [01:49] Good news is we’re giving away some of those, the new study Bible that they have. Good job!Scott: [01:58] You’re saying we actually have a prize closet?
Lizette: [02:00] Yes, we have a prize. That’s it!
Scott: [02:02] That’s quite an upgrade. I have not explored that yet.
Lizette: [02:05] Yes, the Keep Asking prize closet. We’re going to be giving away some of the new CSB study Bibles.
[02:11] Basically the threshold to get one, I’m going to make it pretty basic. You just have to tweet and tag either one of us, and we’ll give those at the end of the show, or @lifewayresearch, and you have to tag @csbible. You put both of those. [02:30] We’ll be able to see it. The first few of those…This way we can connect on those things that are pretty exciting like reading the Bible and sin.Scott: [02:41] I was reading from the CSB this morning.
Lizette: [02:43] I’ve enjoyed it!
Scott: [02:44] From the Book of Micah.
Casey: [02:44] Me too.
Lizette: [02:48] Is this terrible to say? But I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying it. It’s really noticeable.
Casey: [02:54] Yeah, makes a big difference to me too.
Lizette: [02:55] Because I thought, “Oh, this is going to…” Because they had worked so hard on some previous work, but they’ve done just a really great job with it.
[03:07] Since we’re on the topic of sin today and discussing that people can have different views of sin, here’s my question for you guys, the setup. What are some potentially effective ways to promote Lifeway Research’s Keep Asking podcast that could also be questionable or a sin? Effective yet sinful. [03:31] Let me go ahead and start because I already had a few in mind. I was wondering this morning as I was thinking about this if we shouldn’t just apply to iTunes and get the little red E for explicit put by the Keep Asking podcast label. Then we start sprinkling a variety of cuss words throughout the recording each week.Scott: [03:50] For some people, religion itself is offensive. Since we tend to talk about religion is some way, shape, or form every week, it’s one of those things where we could probably earn that rating.
Lizette: [04:01] Right! There we go. Casey?
Casey: [04:04] I don’t know. Maybe my standard’s too low, but that one doesn’t seem like it’s too bad.
Lizette: [04:10] But how about the part where we add cuss words in? Does that make you a little nervous?
Casey: [04:14] I kind of missed that.
Lizette: [04:17] I’m just saying take it a little bit more…
Casey: [04:20] I just keep waiting for you to throw one in right now, just like, “I decided this was the right thing to do and now…”
Lizette: [04:25] Now I’m going to just drop one. No, because I like being employed. How about that? What are some other things? When you’re thinking about how to promote something, what are some things where you’re nuancing and wondering? Some might say that’s a sin. Some not.
Scott: [04:47] Just misleading headlines. We tweet. We can say something’s there that’s not and probably not that different than…No, you were actually going to put the words in the podcast, so that’s not like the explicit lyrics. You were going to do it.
Casey: [05:04] Yeah, that was where my head went to as well is that click bait, “you won’t believe what Lizette said in our latest…” But that might be true.
Lizette: [05:15] When I put the picture quotes of sometimes ridiculous things you say…When I tweet out things, I like to do it…Scott by the way retweeted me for the first time. Was it this weekend?
Scott: [05:28] Was that a first?
Lizette: [05:29] That was a first.
Scott: [05:30] I didn’t notice.
Lizette: [05:30] You had replied once. He’s replied to me on Twitter once, and then I saw the retweet. I thought, “Nine years in and…” Actually, I think today is my nine‑year anniversary.
Scott: [05:44] Wow.
Casey: [05:44] Wow. Congrats.
Lizette: [05:46] I’m going to get us focused here for a moment.
Scott: [05:49] Don’t get choked up on us.
Lizette: [05:50] No. Little weepy.
[05:51] We asked a thousand Americans which of the following best described them. It’s just different variations of I’m a sinner and I’m fine with that, I’m sinner and I work on being less of one, I’m a sinner and I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome that, I am not a sinner, sin does not exist, prefer not to say. What jumped out to you guys in this?Casey: [06:30] Just even two‑thirds of people having a recognition, saying, “I am a sinner,” that’s interesting to me. I don’t know what my frame of reference was for what I was expecting that to be, but I think that that’s just interesting that people have that conviction that, yeah, there’s something. There’s a difference between my ideal self.
[06:51] I guess at the very least saying that and who they really act as every day.Lizette: [06:59] I had not even picked up on that, that that’s a percentage higher than we would see in church attendance or even those claiming to be Christians. There’s maybe a broader acceptance of a sinful nature than I would have thought.
Scott: [07:20] The impetus for this question actually came from when I was waiting in line outside of a Predators game.
Scott: [07:25] Kind of a raucous hockey crowd filing in. There was a street preacher out there on the corner. They had a sign condemning some specific sin. They were yelling out. One of the fans near me just says to his friends, “All right, sinners, let’s go on into the game.”
[07:49] It was one of those things where, yes, if I was stereotyping them, they may be living a more sinful life. But at the same time, it was just that contrast of are there people that say, “Yeah, I’m a sinner, and I’m fine with that” or is it something they’re grappling with or do they just deny the whole conversation. [08:13] We do find that very few people say that they’re fine with being a sinner, just five percent of Americans. We actually have more people saying that they’re not a sinner or that sin doesn’t even exist.Lizette: [08:24] I’m going to just say that ‑‑ I don’t even mean this from a faith, a high standing point of view ‑‑ 10 percent of the people walking around saying sin doesn’t exist tells me either I need to be more alert for dangers that are out in everyday life or that there’s a heavier meaning or something a little bit more contrived to it.
Scott: [08:55] One of the groups that’s high on that are non‑religious people. A third of non‑religious people say that sin does not exist. Not only are they rejecting Christianity and other religions, they’re rejecting our framework and our vocabulary as we talk about that.
[09:16] While Christians believe that that status of being a sinner applies to everyone as we read in Romans 3:23, we’ve got to understand that not everybody’s going to accept that label. Not everybody’s going to accept that terminology.Lizette: [09:35] Wait, let me see if I can drag some of my schooling. In Genesis, when you are…I’m making this up. It’s been a couple of years.
Casey: [09:44] That’s encouraging that you’re going to start talking about the Bible, and then you said, “I’m just making this up.”
Lizette: [09:50] In talking about sin, it was talking about autonomos, like autonomous, but the emphasis on sin was one’s own law as opposed to obedience to God’s law. It goes deeper than an action. It’s living by a different set of rules or authority which you’ve created, which then makes more sense if we see people saying, “Sin doesn’t exist.”
[10:23] They may very much be thinking, “I’m not going by anyone else’s definition of that.” [10:29] Casey, how about you?Casey: [10:31] What do you mean?
Lizette: [10:33] Anything.
Scott: [10:34] We were expecting some confessions about now.
Casey: [10:38] What else stands out?
Lizette: [10:42] Or if you wanted to…By the way, we want to congratulate you on your second puberty.
Casey: [10:50] Right here, that hurts.
Lizette: [10:53] We think you’ve got a great radio voice. We’re thinking this is…
Casey: [10:56] This is a struggle but hopefully people can still understand.
Lizette: [11:00] But you’re a team player, and you’re in. But you’re a stats guy.
Casey: [11:05] One of the things just seeing I guess men being more likely to buy into works based righteousness. I thought that was interesting.
[11:13] Overall, we had 34 percent saying that they’re sinners and they’re working to be less of one whereas 28 percent saying that they’re a sinner and they’re depending on Jesus Christ to overcome that. For men versus women, women are actually slightly more likely to be saying they’re depending on Jesus (33%) versus working to be less of one (30%). But the opposite’s true for men (22% depending on Jesus and 38% working to be less of one). [11:33] I thought that was just kind of…They’re not huge, huge variations in terms of the percentages, but I thought that was interesting that the dominant one was different between the two genders.Lizette: [11:45] In the show notes, we’ll have a definition for huge, huge in there because I know Casey using that stats language. You’re softening up on our listeners. You’re making it easier for them.
Casey: [11:59] Oh geez.
Lizette: [11:59] I think that’s good. You’re making it palatable. I’m assuming huge, huge means statistically significant but not stunning in the number difference.
Casey: [12:09] Right.
Lizette: [12:11] Huge, huge is easy to understand. We’ve had some other research that has touched on this on our theology research, but I didn’t look that up because I was counting on one of you guys to do that.
Scott: [12:27] We did some research just a few months back with Ligonier Ministries on the state of theology in America. When we asked Americans about sin, one of the things we see is that it’s one of the Biblical topics that is not that popular.
[12:42] We can find a lot of Americans believe in God. A lot of Americans believe God authored the Bible. We have a lot of Americans that believe other true things that are Biblical things. But when it comes to sin, that’s when people stumble a bit. [12:57] Only 19 percent of Americans, that includes a lot of Christians, agree that even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation, which is a premise of the Biblical narrative which is that we all fall short of the glory of God. Even if it’s just one small thing, we don’t deserve to be in God’s presence if that’s the case. [13:24] Even when we talk about heaven and hell, we see that 60 percent of Americans believe that heaven is a place for all people where all people will ultimately…Lizette: [13:34] Now what was the percentage again on that?
Scott: [13:36] 6 out of 10 Americans. It’s a place where all people will be reunited with loved ones, which for those who do believe in Christ, yes, you’ll get to see many people that we’ve seen here on earth. There’s that disconnect between…I should share the hell number as well.
Lizette: [13:58] That’s it! We got our first cuss word in.
Scott: [14:00] 4 in 10 Americans agree that hell is an eternal place of judgment where God sends all people who do not personally trust in Christ. That statement would be Biblically correct, but only 4 in 10 Americans agree.
[14:16] We have that divide there that when these Christian beliefs, these Biblical beliefs, start stepping into that territory of using the sin language, using language of punishment, that’s when Americans back off and go, “Whoa, wait a minute.”Lizette: [14:33] One of the things that we saw in our discipleship research that we’ve done for several years is the significance of confessing sin and admitting wrongdoing, how that impacts the rest of your spiritual [life] and the growth in other areas of discipleship. Logically that just makes sense because it requires a vulnerability and a recognition it’s not your own way. Regardless of what those sins are, doing that.
[15:06] The other I noticed as I was looking back through that is that the questions that related to confessing sins also fell into that area of obeying God, denying self. Recognizing sin, addressing sin, it’s a part of that process of obedience. It’s not just fall into that I was hanging in there but then I failed. It’s important for our growth, and we’ve got to be engaging in that. [15:42] Also that the more you do that, your Bible engagement goes up. As you’re looking to that growth, just even looking back at those things, I was encouraged about…I wasn’t encouraged about my own sin, but I was encouraged in the hopefulness that sticking in there and being vulnerable to God and vulnerable in those admissions is healthy and good spiritually for us.Casey: [16:12] The one other thing that I thought was interesting was I was looking at a Pew study from a few years ago that was talking about the percentage of Americans who say that particular actions are morally unacceptable or acceptable. But they also provided that out of not a moral issue.
[16:35] What I found interesting was for Americans when that’s applied to specific behaviors, they tend to reject that notion of sin maybe more than in the general sense which we talked about earlier. [16:47] For instance, for gambling, they say 47 percent of Americans say that’s not a moral issue. They’re not framing it in terms of is this morally acceptable or unacceptable. They’re saying, “I don’t see morality there at all coming into play.” That’s different from the world as a whole where only 19 percent of the world says the same thing, that gambling isn’t a moral issue. [17:11] Regardless of where people come down on some of those specific things that they’re listing out, it’s just interesting, even if they believe in sin as a concept, that’s not the framework that Americans are necessarily thinking through every problem from.Scott: [17:26] For ministry leaders, as you look at data like this, the teaching moment is to say, “Any time that a term is important to your ministry, you need to know the different ways people interpret it.”
[17:40] As we look at this data, we’re clearly seeing that when people hear the word sinner, there are definitely some people that are thinking that’s a type of person or a set of actions or even a religious framework. For some people, they don’t want to be associated with any of those things. Others understand the framework and are willing to accept it. [18:02] Then the conversation is what are they doing about it. That can be true of a lot of other terms that we use to describe our ministry or to describe how we’re doing our ministry. If people are perceiving those in different ways, we may not be communicating as effectively as we think we are.Lizette: [18:18] Good stuff. Guys, we’re out of time.
[18:22] As we wrap up, let’s return once again to our sponsor this week, the Christian Standard Bible. The CSB is for everyone, for readers young and old, new and seasoned. It’s a Bible pastors can preach from and a Bible you can share with your neighbor hearing God’s word for the very first time. You’ll find the CSB to be highly trustworthy and deeply satisfying. [18:42] Remember, we’re giving away some copies of the CSB study Bible to listeners who tweet to us and tag @csbible and @lifewayresearch. (Limited to first five listeners.) [18:51] Thanks everyone for listening. If you have any questions, please tweet to us @smcconn, @statsguycasey, and @lizettebeard or @lifewayresearch. [18:59] Write reviews on iTunes and be sure to tell your friends and family. Get the word out far and wide about our podcast. [19:09] Join us next time for another edition of Keep Asking. Keep asking, learn more, do better.See also
Most Americans Admit They’re Sinners by Lifeway Research