Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 863 | What Happened to Millennials? | Guest: Dr. George Barna

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

Today we're joined by Dr. George Barna, author and one of the country's leading faith and culture researchers, on the state of the Millennial generation and the church. We answer the big question: How do we help Millennials thrive when they have such unique challenges? Millennials are the largest generation ever, and some startling stats reveal that many don't even believe there is absolute value to life or moral truths. We go over the biggest pain issues that Millennials deal with and how to address them and explain why maximum happiness can never be the goal of life, as many Millennials are led to believe. We also discuss the scary fact that only slightly more than one-third of pastors actually hold a biblical worldview and what we can do to turn this around. You can get Dr. Barna's new book, "Raising Spiritual Champions: Nurturing Your Child's Heart, Mind and Soul," here: http://bit.ly/3YW9L5B --- Timecodes: (01:24) Millennial belief trends (10:11) Shift of generations in worldview / being a “good person” (13:13) Addressing generation-specific pain issues (19:50) Committed relationships & finding purpose (25:16) Questioning ourselves (28:50) Biblical worldview / entertainment industry (34:00) Stats on pastors' biblical worldviews --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers — get $30 OFF your box today at GoodRanchers.com – make sure to use code 'ALLIE' when you subscribe. You'll also lock in your price for two full years with a subscription to Good Ranchers! Patriot Mobile — go to PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE or call 878-PATRIOT and use promo code 'ALLIE' to get free activation! Jase Medical — get up to a year’s worth of many of your prescription medications delivered in advance. Go to JaseMedical.com today and use promo code “ALLIE”. Netsuite — gain visibility and control of your financials, planning, budgeting, and inventory so you can manage risk, get reliable forecasts, and improve margins. Go to NetSuite.com/ALLIE to get your one-of-a-kind flexible financing program. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 446 | Blaming Boomers for Millennials' Problems | Guest: Helen Andrews https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-446-blaming-boomers-for-millennials-problems-guest/id1359249098?i=1000527233342 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Millennials are well-educated and compared to previous generations. We've got a lot of money. We're waiting longer to get married so we can pursue the things that we want to pursue. We're putting off having children to make sure that we are as happy and as well-traveled as possible.

and yet millennials are anxious. They're depressed. They have lost faith in large part in God. Why is this? What is the worldview that most millennials carry? Dr. George Barna. He is a researcher, a director of research and co-founder of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. He is also a professor of worldview there. He is here today to assess the data, to analyze the data with us. us, we are also going to be talking about the biblical worldview, not just among U.S. adults, but also in the church in particular, looking at some troubling stats around the lack of biblical worldview and pastors, associate pastors, especially children's pastors. So what does all this mean and what do we make of it? What do we do about it? This episode is brought to you by our friends at good ranchers. Go to good ranchers.com. Use code alley and check out. That's good ranchers.com. Code Allie. Dr. George Barna, thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

There's only about a million questions that I want to ask you. But first I want to start with, we got an email from someone who represents you. And while there are a million questions, I want to start with this because this is relevant to me and a large portion of my audience. There was a recent study that you published about millennials and how we help millennials thrive. very few people seem to be asking that question because definitely for the past 10 years we've only been hearing about how awful millennials are. I'm a millennial born in 92. I would say a large portion of my audience also millennials.

We're moms. We're adults now. We're not just college students. We're figuring out life, mostly hopefully responsible. But tell us a little bit about millennials, maybe some misconceptions. And then what do you mean by how we can help millennials thrive? Kelly Beth, when we look at millennials, they're an important group for a number of reasons. Everybody's important.

Yeah. But when we look at a particular generation, this group is important because it's the largest generation we've ever had. It's the group that now is assuming important leadership positions in business, in government, in churches, nonprofits, all over the country. They're holding positions of influence. And one of the most significant things about millennials is, as you alluded to earlier, there are a primary parenting generation. Now, why do I think that's so important? Because I know that the key thing in every person's life is their worldview.

Everybody has a worldview. You need a worldview to get through the day because it's your decision-making filter. Every decision you make runs through that filter. and it's based on the foundations, the assumptions, the beliefs, the values that are part of that worldview. And so when we talk about the struggles that millennials are having and they're plentiful, and then talk about how can we help them, let's first identify some of the struggles. One of those is that spiritually, it's the adult generation that has the lowest incidence of biblical worldview in America's history. as best we can tell. Certainly over the last 40 years that I've been measuring it, we know that

definitively. So we're looking at currently only two out of every 100 millennials possessing a biblical worldview, meaning that they see the world in light of biblical principles. They try to think like Jesus so they can act like Jesus, only 2%. Now, what have they replaced that with? It's something called syncretism, which means basically that there's no particular worldview they buy into. They're just taking bits and pieces from other worldviews, Marxism, postmodernism, secular humanism, Eastern mysticism, all the other worldviews out there based on the thing that basically rules their life, which is their feelings. Now, feelings can lead us astray more often than not. So we've got to be very careful about that. But we know that millennials do not believe

there are any absolute moral truths. And so that sets them up for all kinds of issues in terms of relationships, in terms of mental health, in terms of occupational issues, all of these things and more. So those are some of the things that we have to be aware of related to millennials. Less than one out of five millennials, 22 percent contend that life is sacred, while half of the generation, 50% argues that life is what you make it. There is no absolute value associated with human life. Now, I think that we can probably look throughout history and see what kinds of atrocities are committed by or allowed by those who simply don't believe there is any innate value in human life. What's interesting about that, though, is that millennials from a very

early age as the study notes, I mean, we have really been told that we are special. I mean, we saw the dawn of technology, the first About Me sections, all of our personalized technology from about at least my teenage years, had the letter I in front of it, our personal profiles, our pages, the algorithms, everything was kind of catered to us, our personalities, what we like, what we want. And so in some ways, the world really did. evolve around us, also this instant gratification of Amazon and all this stuff. Like, we kind of came of age during this time when we were told you are special, everything should cater to you. And yet, at the same time, we don't believe that there is any innate value

in ourselves or innate value in other people. It's a very strange and I think probably dangerous dichotomy. Yeah, I think there is a bit of a shift there that's taking place where millennials look at themselves and believe they have value. And part of their desire, highest desire in life, is for other people to value them as much as they value themselves. And interestingly, again, taking it from a spiritual vantage point, what we find is that this generation has the largest proportion of any ever that rejects the existence or presence of some kind of a supernatural deity, God, if you will.

And so there's actually a larger proportion of people in the millennial generation, 40%, who are what we've taken to calling don'ts. People who don't believe God exists, people who don't know if God exists, people who don't care if there's a God that exists. That proportion is higher than the 35% who believe that there is a God who's all-knowing, all-powerful, created the universe, still rules it today, is just and loving. they reject that more often than they accept it. And so you've got this, you know, tightrope walk that they're trying to work through of trying to make sense of the world where they're at the center of everything. They've replaced this idea of God. And now everything revolves around them.

And I hate to use the term narcissistic. But for many millennials, that's probably an apt description. And I don't say that pejoratively. I say it just so that we can start to get a grip on, okay, who are they? What are they struggling with? And how do we address this? And I think that point of view that everything revolves around me, I have value, but you don't have value until you prove yourself to me. And the way that you prove yourself to me is by admitting that I have great value and by seeing my needs and addressing my needs, taking care of me. So they're in a difficult situation at that point of view.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever the lately, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV

or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Obviously, you deal with data and have dealt with data for the past several decades, but you also deal personally with a lot of young people. I know you're a professor at ACU. And so how have you seen this kind of just anagram? personally, this shift in generations of worldview. And I know the students that you have today wouldn't be millennials. I think that they're mostly or all generation Z. And so I'm sure there's a little difference there even. But as far as worldview, as far as selflessness versus selfishness, what kind of shift have you seen as you've observed these changing generations over the past few decades? Yeah, I think one of the biggest shifts has been a

way from the idea that it's through a relationship with God or Jesus Christ, that I gain my goodness. That's what makes me whole. That's what facilitates my transformation as a human being. As opposed to today, the idea is, I am who I am. I'm fine as I am. I'm a good person. and in fact, the entire label Christian has been redefined in our culture today. I never speak about a person having a Christian worldview. I talk about them having a biblical worldview. And the reason for that is because we discovered through the research that now most people under the age of 40 in America believe that to be a Christian simply means that you're

trying to be a good person. You're doing the best you can. and it doesn't matter if you have a relationship with God or even believe in God. All that matters is that you're trying to be your ultimate self. And so I think when you have that as your starting place, that's a huge shift that's taken place. And when we interact with students now, that's one of the primary or initial conversations that you want to have with them, is what is their understanding of their place in the universe, what is their understanding of whether or not there is a God that exists,

what is his nature as opposed to your own nature. That's a good starting place for getting an understanding of, yeah, what do we need to maybe challenge in terms of where you're coming from in order for you to achieve what you're trying to achieve in life? These are not bad people. They're just confused people. Yeah. Something that I found interesting in the study too was the sense of hopelessness or

hopefulness, rather, that millennial. still retain. Even after such like a low view of the value of innate value of other life, obviously, I guess not believing many of them, all people are made in the image of God, being very confused about how they orient themselves around the world and their biblical worldview, they still more than Jin X feel a sense of optimism about the future. So what do we do with that? And how do we help millennials thrive? Because there's a lot of disconnect. As you said, there's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of disconnect between their values and the vision that they want for the future.

Yeah. You know, Allie Duff, a lot of the time you find that people only change when they're in pain or in crisis. And so for me, part of the key thing is to recognize what millennials tell us constitutes the source of their pain. And that has to do a lot with number one. They don't have any sense of purpose for life. And so when they get up in the morning, they're wondering, why should I get out of bed? There's nothing really waiting for me out there, nothing that necessarily needs me. I wish it did.

I'd like to be part of the solution to all the crises and issues taking place in the world, but I don't see how I fit in. I don't know what value I add. That's part of that absence of the mentality that my life matters. I count, not because I say I do, but because God. God made me, and he made me for a purpose, and he gave me special abilities and gifts and resources to be able to make a difference in the world. That's what he wants me to do.

That's a perspective they need. A second point of pain that we see with enormous numbers of millennials is what mental health experts are looking at, which is the high rates of anxiety and depression and fear and suicidal thoughts, highest rate of suicide of any generation in our history. Why? Because they don't have a sense of purpose in life. Because they don't feel like they're valued. Because part of their goal in life, the highest goal that we find millennials describing to us is they want maximum happiness. Now, that can never really be your goal in life. Your goal in life might be something that brings you happiness. But happiness itself can't be the goal. And in fact, the biblical perspective on this

will be don't, don't, you know, gear yourself to happiness. Understand that God wants you to be filled with joy. Joy is something that lasts. Happiness is something that's fluid. It comes and it goes based on situations and circumstances. Joy is based on who you are and the relationships that you have. and what you can take from those relationships and add to those relationships. And thirdly, I'd say the research also showed us that relationships themselves are a third major point of pain for millennials where they're saying, you know what, I don't have lasting relationships. Nobody's making commitments in relationships. And so I want to figure out how do I make something work better?

And this is partly due to the fact that they don't believe that other people have values. you, they don't ascribe dignity to other people simply by virtue of the fact that God created them. They're alive, and therefore they matter. They are important. You know, you've got to build that trust based on those foundations. And so I think there are some key things that we can do in terms of helping them to develop better relationships. And we do that by helping them to see humanity in a different light. Yes, you want to go out. You want to change. the world. You want to do good things to help other people. That's great. But why? If you don't believe that their life matters, that they are sacred simply by virtue of their existence, God created

them. Well, then why bother? You know, it's a fool's errand. And so if we can go back and challenge some of their fundamental assumptions about who they are, where their value comes from, the fact that God gives them dignity. They don't have to, and they can't earn it. It is simply part of who they are. These are the kinds of discussions that when we have them with people, it's important. I just finished writing a book about how do we raise young people to be champions in life, to be spiritual champions, to be human champions.

And part of that is having these conversations and recognizing that it's not about me telling millennials or any subsequent generation, your point of view is wrong. It's about me being willing to listen to them, explain that point of view, explain why they believe it's right, and then to have Socratic conversations with them. In other words, to ask questions about why they believe that, how that's working, what else they've seen tried, why they don't believe those things. Get into that deeper conversation where you're able to build that very reservoir of trust with them. And they know that I care about them. I love them. I want them to thrive. But I'm fearful that based on some of the points of view that they currently possess, that's going to be

exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. And so if we can have this ongoing dialogue where we think more deeply about some of these baseline questions in life, we can really help them to enjoy life more and to add more value to the lives of other people. That's what they want to do. They just don't know how to do it. Yes. And when will that book be published, just so everyone knows? Yeah, that book is called Raising Spiritual Champions.

It comes out on Labor Day. You mentioned committed relationships. They're less likely to get in committed relationships. I was just reading recently that the share of U.S. adults who are married by age 21, sank from about one-third in 1980 to 6% in 2021. Now it's very often, I think the average age is later 20s for women and then 30s for men, I believe. So it's much- 28 and 30.

28 and 30, okay, so much later than what it used to be. And yet in real dollars, millennials actually have more wealth. They're making more money, at least. I should say that they're making more money than our predecessors did. We have fewer hard assets. We're less likely to get married. We obviously have fewer children, but the number of bachelor's degrees has increased dramatically since 1980.

So we are pursuing the things that we want to pursue. We're making the money. We're giving the degrees. We're putting off marriage and kids. And yet, as you mentioned, like depression, anxiety higher than previous generations, somewhere in there, the message that we received just. to do what you want to do no matter what, it translated into, I think, a lot of misery. And I'm just not sure a lot of millennials still.

I mean, the oldest millennials, you know, 40, early 40s at this point, I still don't think a lot of millennials realized that we were misguided and kind of went the wrong direction in a lot of ways. It's true. And when we look at the studies, what we find is that people are thinking that they're going to get that happiness that they're so urgently seeking through their purpose. personal accomplishments, the degrees they earn the salary, the cars, the houses, the whatever the stuff may be that they're interested in. And yet as they achieve those,

as you allude to, they're able to achieve those things at younger ages than prior generations, but they're finding it to be abundantly unsatisfying. Unfortunately, the way they were parented, did not give them the mindset of, well, maybe it's because I'm looking in the wrong place. Maybe there's a spiritual connection here that I need to check out. Maybe there's something deeper that I've never really examined or personally experienced. Because again, with these two younger generations, many of them have never been in a church. Many of them were not raised by parents who were religious or spiritual people. And of course, when they go to college or university, they're in classrooms where their professors are apt to put down

religion as folly, as foolishness that a smart person would never engage in, particularly those who are pushing Marxism or critical race theory, some of these other philosophies. So, yeah, it's a real challenge. It really calls for a lot of undoing of the basic assumptions. of millennials in order for them to get on a different path that will wind up being a better path that will enable them to become the people that God made them to be. And God has made every one of us to thrive in life. That's why it gave us the Bible. It wasn't a bunch of boundaries that tell us what you can't do. It's a bunch of boundaries that tell us if you do some of these things,

it's going to harm you. If you do these other things, you're going to find that it benefits you. And so he really wants us to thrive. He's given us the tools to do so, including the possibility of relationships with other people who have discovered these things and have firsthand experience about what does it look like to be a Christian? What does it feel like? What do you have to do? What do you surrender? But what do you get in return? Those are the kinds of conversations that a lot of millennials would love to have. But because they don't respect religious people, they're not willing to sit down with them and have these kind of conversations. It might take getting to the point of so much pain that they're willing to try something outside the box that they've created for themselves. Yes, and very often I've seen this with people that I know in my own life. Getting married and having kids actually has a way, it seems, of putting things into perspective. A lot of times even just moving out of the city, it has a way of kind of growing up.

you up, maturing you, making you think about things a little bit different. There's something about the nature of commitment and sacrifice that marriage and parenting necessitates that I think makes even these don'ts that we see among millennials or maybe people who are raised in the church but have since left the church, start taking those things a little more seriously and start thinking, well, you know, maybe I didn't have a great experience in the church or I don't know what I believe, but I really want my kids to have a moral framework. I really want to be able to trust their teachers. I really want them to kind of have some kind of foundation. And then that also has a way of leading parents back into the church and into a relationship with Christ. It's

really interesting how God has like set up those institutions and those mechanisms, I think, to draw people's heart back to him. Well, it's true. And you know, you think back over the last couple of decades, there have been a lot of bumper stickers that I think reflect what's going on in our culture, and that's what makes those bumper stickers popular. And one of them is one that was very popular with millennials question authority. And I don't have a problem with that. I think it's fine for us to question everything as long as we're really open to learning truth. One of the things that I would encourage millennials and Zs and whatever generation, all people, really, to do, is to question yourself.

Don't assume that you've figured out the truth. Always be searching. You know, you see some of the guitars in the background. I've had the privilege of playing with a lot of different great guitar players around the world. When I'm Larry Coriel, great jazz player, one day we were talking. And, you know, I said, so you think you've got it all figured out? And he looked at me and he said, oh, gosh, no, George. When I've stopped learning, I might as well die.

And, you know, I was a lot younger at the time, but that always stuck with me. What a great philosophy of life to have of you've always got to be learning. You've always got to be challenging yourself. You can always do better. You can grow. You can invest in better ways in other people's lives. But you've got to be looking for those opportunities. You've got to be looking for the mechanisms, the tools that will allow you to know those things,

know how to do those things, and then to be able to move forward. because, you know, you go back to it and, you know, you look at the Bible, what does it teach us? One of the great principles is, you know, what's known as the Genesis 12 principle, where God said to Abraham, you are blessed to be a blessing. And so if I take every day that way recognizing that every resource that I have has been not earned by me, it's been given to me, it's been entrusted to me by God, so that I in turn can take it and use it to bless other people. That's a great way to live. One of my favorite kinds of studies that I've seen released is about the biblical worldview. And we've talked about, you've talked about the cornerstones of the biblical worldview.

Number one, Orthodox biblical understanding of God. Two, all human beings are sinful by nature. three consequences of our sin can only be forgiven and eliminated through Christ. Cornerstone four, the entire Bible is true, reliable. Cornerstone five, absolute moral truth exists. Six, the ultimate purpose of human life is to know, love, and serve God. Cornerstone seven, success on earth is best understood as consistent obedience to God. So it's not surprising that a minority of U.S. adults have those views, have those biblical worldviews, especially among our generation. But I've also seen research that not even everyone in the church understands those

things fully and the biblical implications of them. Why do you think that is? The culture has a tremendous influence on what we think and believe and do. And so when we look at parenting in particular in America and try to figure out, you know, what is really influencing our children? Because understand, a person's worldview is almost fully developed by the age of 13. Because our worldview is that decision-making filter that we need to get through every moment of every day because we're constantly making decisions, we start developing it at 15 to 18 months of age. And by the age of 13, it's in place. During our teens and 20s, we refine it. We figure out how to apply it and articulate it during our 30s, 40s, 40s, early to mid-60s, we become an evangelist

for our own worldview. And then in our later years, we reassess. We wonder, gee, how did I do? Could I have done better? What should I have done differently? But you look at this whole worldview issue, and we try to figure out, well, what are the primary influences that determine how it develops during those first 13 years of life? And what we discovered is, by far the dominant influence is the arts and entertainment media. And so what happens is people watch a movie or a TV program. They listen to a song. They play a video game. They read a book or magazine. They go on social media apps. We have all this different media input, which typically is giving us a single perspective in a constricted period of time. A movie, what, two hours? But would they

that two hours, it may give you a consistently Marxist point of view or a consistently biblical point of view, a consistently Eastern point of view. It can take any point of view. But what we know is that generally speaking, the arts and entertainment media are not feeding us biblical truth. They're feeding us a secularized truth, regardless of which philosophy it stems from. And when you are in church, maybe one hour a week, if you're really devoted, maybe two hours a week. But we know from Nielsen studies and other studies that people are digesting 60, 70, 80, 90 hours of media content every single week. Not only is it overwhelming that one or two hours a week you may have in church and maybe a little bit of extra time you spend personally reading the Bible,

praying, doing whatever, that media content really becomes the primary educator in your life. It's the thing that begins to tell you this is how life works. And because most of us are most impressed by visual cues when we see something in a movie or in a little video clip on Instagram or in a television program, we've been watch, whatever it may be, that leaves a lasting imprint on our mind. The brain research that's being done now is showing that that takes up space in our brains and it stays there. And so that becomes the force that's dictating our worldview more so than what parents say. And by the way, our parenting research over the last year has shown that most parents in America no

longer have the trust of their children. So as their children are developing their work, worldview, they initially turn to their parents and they want to know what their parents believe because they trust them. But then when they hear their parents say one thing and do another, what we found is that the conclusion that children are coming to is, you know what, in trying to figure out the world, i.e. worldview, my parents are just as confused as I am. They must be because they say one thing and do another. It's inconsistent. So I'm going to have to look elsewhere. And that's why the media becomes so influential because it's internally consistent. It may not be truth, but it's consistent.

Here are some even more troubling stats that I've seen you recently comment on by the American World View inventory. This was 2022. It's that just slightly more than a third of pastors hold a biblical worldview, 37%, 62% hold a hybrid worldview that sees. syncretism you were talking about earlier among senior pastors, 41% hold a biblical worldview, 28% hold a biblical worldview among associate pastors. Seven out of every eight of children's pastors and youth pastors lack a biblical worldview. Okay, so not only do we have like a parent biblical worldview problem, but then you look at the pastors and especially the children's pastors and most of them do not hold those.

cornerstones of a biblical worldview. That's really, really troubling to me. Well, it should be, and I'm glad it is. Thank you for that. That encourages me. What I'm trying to get people to understand is that we're playing church wrong, if you will. What we do is we use children as bait to get adults in the door. And we try to make children happy during the hour or so they're there because we want them to go back and tell their parents, oh, I had a really good time. Oh, good. Then we'll go back. But the problem is when we have adults, we've confused transformation with information transmission.

And so we think we're successful in ministry if people sit there and take notes. But we know that most adults don't change. Their worldview doesn't change much after the age of 13. It takes some kind of a amazing. of life crisis to get that to shift and maybe, you know, the Holy Spirit coming into their life and doing something almost miraculous in terms of bringing about that change. Really where we have influences with children. So it seems to me that what we ought to be doing is preparing parents to be effective in training their children, developing their children's

worldview, helping them to recognize the key principles in the scriptures that will help them to lead a successful life. Let's see, even in saying a phrase like successful life, that's kind of a trap too, because we've researched that and we know that most people believe that success in life is, again, about what I can accomplish, what I can achieve, what I can buy, my reputation, how popular I am, all those things. When in point of fact, the Bible teaches us that a successful life is all about consistent obedience to God. So here again, we've got to retrain the minds of parents so that as they go and

teach their children stuff, and most importantly, as they model that lifestyle for their children, their kids say, oh, I get it, I see, I can do that, I'll imitate mom and dad. It makes sense. And, you know, parents have to have somewhere to go. They want to go to their pastor and say, look, I've got these questions. I've got these big theological questions. Can you help me answer them? or even just basic theological questions. Can you help me answer them? Unfortunately, I think a lot of pastors, and I'm not trying to throw all pastors under the bus,

by any means. But I think a lot of pastors, even on these very contentious cultural questions today, but what does really the Bible say about gender? What does really the Bible say about abortion? What does it say about homosexuality from the culture we're hearing on social media says, the Bible says nothing about those things.

It doesn't say anything about those things. Your worldview doesn't affect how you see those things at all. Really all we're supposed to do as Christians is just to love, which has been just defined as unconditional tolerance and acceptance. And so I think even a lot of pastors are unprepared to then disciple the parents that are disciplining the children in these very difficult questions. So I think like we just have like a discipleship issue, it seems like. We do.

And one of the surveys that we did, you know, I've done a lot of political research over the years. And one of the things that we have been doing for some of the presidential candidates I worked for, was trying to figure out how do we get Christians to take seriously the issues? Because frankly, what we discovered is most Christians vote on the basis of their feelings about a candidate as opposed to what does that candidate believe? Where are they coming from? What's the value system that's creating the policies that they're espousing and that they want me to vote them into office to put into place? And so we went back and we talked to church people. And what we discovered is that a huge majority of them said, you know, the single most

important thing I'd like my pastor to do for me is not tell me who to vote for. I'd like my pastor to teach me what the Bible says about the issues that are being talked about in the course of the campaign because we found two things. Number one, Christians are the least likely to discuss. politics with their friends who believe differently than they do. Why? Because they say, I'm afraid I'm going to embarrass God. I don't know what the Bible says. I don't really even know what I believe. So I don't want to get in those discussions, much less try to have influence on how other people are going to think and vote. And second, we found that most Christians were telling

us, I don't know how to find that information in the Bible. We are incredibly ill-skilled at using the primary tool that God gave us to thrive in life. And so pastors need to not only teach us how to use the Bible, why we should trust the Bible, but also help us to go to those passages that talk about the big issues of the day, whatever those may be. Because we found out of our research that Christians said, I don't know if the candidate's positions on crime, on abortion, on marriage, on sexual, on the economy, on any of these issues. I don't know if it's right or wrong. And frankly, right now, I don't believe the Bible speaks to these things.

So I'm kind of left on my own. And what else can I do? But trust my feelings. Hence you have the kind of leaders we have today. Yes. And thankfully, we have the privilege of clarity and courage in God's word. I think a lot of times we even fear going to God's word for answers to many of these questions because we're afraid that the culture is

going to see us is too harsh or unloving if we say what God really says about the dignity of human life or what he really says about marriage and gender, but he has given to us everything that we need for life and godliness. And so we need pastors who simply go to the word of God, not reaching into their own minds and hearts for wisdom, but to go to the word of God, that's what millennials need, that's what every generation needs, that's what parents need, that's what children need. And thank the Lord that he has given to us is his word that gives us so much. much clarity. Thank you so much, Dr. Barn. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Is there any last message or last encouragement? Either is for parents of these adult millennials today

to keep encouraging their kids or for millennials who have become parents ourselves. Yeah, you know, we're living in confusing times. And I mean, that's part of the strategy of God's enemy. Let's confuse people. Let's make life chaotic and turbulent. But God knew that was coming. And that's part of the reason why we have the Bible. If we're willing to take the time to learn how to use it and to take the time to consistently use it and then to apply what we learn to how we live, and maybe we need to talk to some other believers who are more skilled in Bible study activities and interpretation, that's fine. That's a great thing to do. That's what the body of Christ is meant to be. It's not about institutions and events. It's about relationships. And so the more that we can recognize, you know, God does love me. God did put me here to make a difference in the world. God wants me to succeed and to thrive.

And he wants it so badly. He gave me the mechanisms and the tools that I need to do that. It's just up to us as to whether or not we're going to take advantage of those. But if we're willing to do that, this could be the greatest time in human history to be alive. Because you look at all the pain, all the suffering, all the questions, all the confusion that's out there. These are all opportunities for God's people to say, no, no, no, wait, God has an answer. And let me share it with you.

And together we can pursue that. And we can do great things and see everything turn out better. That's a great possibility if we're willing to pursue it. Yes, and amen. Thank you so much, Dr. Barna. I really appreciate it. And again, raising spiritual champions, that book will be out, Labor to. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over high.

and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.