Consequences of a Declining Biblical Worldview in America: Interview with Dr Adam Rasmussen

welcome back to another episode of Christian Natural Health today I am very pleased to have Dr um Dr Adam rasmason

with us uh as a fellow H at the cultural Research Center and the dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at

Arizona Christian University Dr rasmason draws upon his 25 years of experience in Christian education to inspire students

to thrive under the lordship of Christ in all aspects of their lives with a passion for helping students connect

their faith with reason and culture he guides them to make meaningful and relevant connections that go beyond mere

academic study Dr rasmason is a magnum law graduate of Northwestern College where he earned a ba in history he also

holds an MA in educational Ministries from Wheaten College as well as a PhD in educational studies with a focus on

leadership and administration from the tbet School of Theology at Biola University his research interests

include biblical literacy educational Ministries and Christian apologetics welcome Dr rasmas and thanks for joining

us wow Dr Dil it's great to be here with you absolutely so uh I want to talk to

you about your work with the cultural Research Center with Dr George Barna and most of us who have been like in church

recently have probably heard about their various studies that kind of talk about the alarming statistics of the decline

of biblical literacy and faith and all of that in our culture so first of all can you tell us a little bit of

background of like why did the cultural Research Center get started um and kind of what's their goal in conducting these

studies in the first place that's a great question at Arizona Christian University we are theologically and

culturally conservative we're not affiliated with any church or denomination uh but what we do is we

provide a well-rounded education for the students that come to our school and uh

that that includes uh teaching in biblical worldview and so while we have

all kinds of sports and music and activities at the heart of it is the Lord Jesus Christ and we're so pleased

that about five years ago we were able to acquire Dr George Barna to be on our

faculty and he is the lead researcher for the cultural Research Center so he's

been studying biblical worldview by the way since 1995 so I remember reading his studies

for a long time and he's he is the Premier person to be studying this and

so every year we study the incidence of biblical worldview among adults um we

have other studies as well we've we've looked at Millennials we've looked at different strata we've just done um one

on what we're thinking is going to happen with the election we have one that we will do post elction as well so

we look at all those issues but the main um thing that we're trying to do Dr DeVille is to a answer the question how

do our beliefs as Americans square up to the Bible some people will um self uh

determine that they are Christian and that's great 66% of Americans would say

that they are Christian but how biblical are we that's the question that we're looking at so we

we our construct that we're measuring is called biblical worldview right and so

the incidence of biblical worldview is actually much lower about 4% are

consistently um in line with the basic doctrines of the Bible like there's one God and his son Jesus is is the Christ

and and salvation by grace through faith so you see there's a difference between cultural Christianity and biblical

Christianity and we want to kind of tease out what does that mean and and how can we do better as Christians in

America how can we come back to scripture right okay and so just some nuts and bolts how do you actually

conduct studies like that like do you call people and say Hey how do you identify or like send them emails or

what do you do we sure do so this is um Dr Barner as I said has been doing this

a long time right so sometimes the questions change based on how culture

changes but but the methodology is pretty much the same so sometimes we use a mixed method um many times it's

surveys right and so sometimes it's interviews as well but we do a random sample of about 2,000 Americans 18 and

above and we try to have that be representative of the larger population

yeah and then we have different uh algorithms that we use within that and

it will include questions on beliefs and behaviors on certain Dam demographic

questions it takes around uh 30 minutes or so for somebody to fill that out yeah

okay so and when you talk about the concept of worldview so biblical worldview versus some other what are

some of the criteria that say you fall into this that or the other I'm assuming that that has to be to some degree not

arbitrary but like you have to draw the line somewhere so I'm curious how you define that sure so a world view is the

intellectual emotional spiritual filter that an individual uses to experience

interpret and respond to reality yeah every person has a worldview and it is

the basis of every decision we make yeah the biblical worldview is or or biblical

theism is one among many worldviews that are represented in in the United States

and in in the biblical worldview uh a person's ideas uh about all of life and

Eternity come from the commands and principles in the Bible okay but um not

everybody holds all of those beliefs so the questions are going to um revolve

around Origins like where did everything come from some are going to revolve around morality what what is right and

wrong or how do we determine what is right and wrong and and those kind of things and so we have different World

Views that are represented we have um you know naturalism we have

postmodernism we have you know um Hinduism you you name it I mean whatever

Americans are believing this is a free country and and sure the um the right to

have religious ideas or anti-religious ideas is theirs and so we want to

measure biblical Christianity the basics of scripture against the marketplace of ideas that are out there today yeah so

it sounds like you're defining worldview essentially as either a religious perspective and I guess you could argue

that naturalism and postmodernism is sort of religious or um you could say that it's a philosophy a philosophical

idea but it's basically this is the underpinning through which you see all the facts that are out there and usually

it falls into one of those two categories would you agree with that yeah I mean one of one of the things that we've kind of coined um you've

heard of the nuns maybe so the n o NES so Pew research is called um some of the

younger people are the nuns like they don't they don't really belong to any

religious category they would say that they are they have none we call them the don'ts they're the don'ts they don't

know if God exists they don't believe that God exists or they don't care if

God exists right so there's a there's a pocket there that like you said it's a

philosophical or religious um presupposition about God right and and

there are people that you know they have to create some kind of moral um way of

living out of this idea that there is no God or I really don't care or I can't know and you know of the ramifications

of that are pretty sad yeah yeah because I mean we believe as Christians that there's a God who created everything

he's infinitely wise and he's all loving and we can all come back to him every one of us and what an

optimistic and ultimately fulfilling way to live life and if you try to live life

without that um it's gonna be very anxious and depressing and sad yeah yeah

and that's what so one of the most recent studies that I saw that you guys did was showing the correlation between

different differing worldviews and maybe departing from that biblical perspective and mental health challenges can you

speak to that like what did you guys find yes and this goes back to the end of September so anybody can find uh This

research it's free just go to cultural research

center.com and you can find this this one is called research research suggests

consequences of anti-biblical worldview often misdiagnosed and treated as mental

illness so the basic premise Dr DeVille is that like what you're thinking about

all the time is going to impact how you feel of course and yeah right and so

what we discovered and I'm I'm really um glad that we did is that the science

shows basically what we we intuitively know and that is that the biblical

worldview will um benefit your life emotionally so there's a a direct um

inverse correlation it's moderate to strong so on Pearsons it would be

negative .5 to7 so what this means is when one goes

up the other goes down or vice versa so you can think about somebody who's

studying for a test okay the amount of hours goes up yeah the number of

problems they get wrong goes down sure okay or like the dollar and gold so like

the dollar is strong gold is weak when the dollar is weak gold is strong it's inverse y so what we found is that the

more of a Biblical worldview you have that you really believe then you will

have a lower incidence of um anxiety

depression and fear ADF if you want to remember that little uh acronym So

like um on the on the other hand some of the people that have the least amount of

biblical worldview are our youngest people okay those that have just entered adulthood they have have a very low

incidence of biblical worldview around 2% maybe well they're the ones that are struggling with this the most they have

the highest incidence of anxiety depression and fear so what we're proposing is why not come back to the

Lord why not give Jesus a try why not look at scripture and and hear the truth

about who you are and how this universe works from a very ancient document

that's living and active today yeah absolutely and the fact that you're describing this Continuum of a Biblical

worldview suggests that people have an idea at least in our culture that you can pick and choose and you can like

take this piece but not this piece so do you find that that's happening a lot like are there a lot of people that are like yes checking all the boxes

everything the Bible says I believe that versus a lot of people that are like well I like this Doctrine but I don't know about this one like do that this is

yeah yeah sorry I didn't mean to interrupt um that's that's really um

what we're doing we're looking at from a lot of different angles yeah but one of the things that we've discovered is that

92% of Americans are what we would call syncretists so they'd say I want a

little bit of you know do not judge or you will be judged and and love uh your

neighbor as yourself but I really don't want to love God with all my heart I'll leave that one apart over there and I'll

pick up a little bit of karma a little bit of throw that out to the universe okay and what we found is that there's a

very very weak correlation with your religion or your denomination what this

means is the people sitting next to you in the Pew they are having problems with

syncretism they are have they they could really truly be saved but just like

people in the Old Testament okay people struggled in the New Testament with loving only one God right and coming

back to to the Lord and following him wholeheartedly As Americans we're

struggling with that yeah so why do you think that's becoming so popular and it is it's it's skewing more younger too

right like as people get younger they get more into syncretism is that true yes that's absolutely certain um I

think a couple of things are happening here number one it's human nature so we

apart from the saving work of the Lord and his continual work through the spirit and and the church and being in

his word we're always going to go this way yeah second I mean it goes all the way back to the Garden right yeah so

it's part of human nature here in America our moral framework is very subjective so it doesn't feel right to

me when God says this in the world I don't like that and so I am the

authority over the Bible truth sure um and then third of all uh with with these

things and I'm holding up a phone here okay um my own individualism okay my sub

Ive reality is further enforced because whatever I'm looking for I can find on

my own here and what is being out there in the world is not biblical it's

Antichrist really and it's anti-bible and it's anti-authority so one of the

ways I say it is like the authority now is the playlist it's not the pulpit so

like the the church is not the same Authority it used to be nor the pastor or the Bible but what is auth

authoritative is what I feel and I can if I don't like something I'll just swipe it and I'll listen to something

else so we're constantly like it's this confirmation bias feedback loop where I

am the authority instead of yielding myself and saying Jesus is the authority

yeah and to what degree do you feel like I mean it seems like the concept of syncretism is inherently contradictory

like you're trying to pick and choose things that don't Jive if you actually take them to their logical conclusion

either this or that but not both kind of a thing and I feel like that's going to create some cognitive dissonance where

that might be part of the anxiety that people feel like the world is unsafe what's true is there such a thing like

is that the case yes Lauren and we we have to have compassion because like

Jesus said people are like a sheep without a Shepherd sure and we can't even Define what a man and a woman is

anymore I mean some of the most basic things we are hoisting the full

responsib ibility on the individual and we're hoisting it on them before they

have even entered adolesence nobody I mean it's hard

because parents feel like oh I the culture is telling me to parent this particular way yeah and so good

Christian parents are also torn with all the messages they're hearing on this but

the pressures on young people are are NE they've never been

like that and I don't know in all of history because the way Men Express

themselves or women Express themselves has always been culturally derived from

the society yeah so I I did a wedding a few years ago and the men were wearing

Kilts it was so cool had the bag pipes and all of that and as a culture the

Scottish culture says that is manly and I will never do I'm a Norwegian so right

but it wasn't some individual guy it was the culture and so like what is

masculine and feminine has usually been derived from the culture but now in our

culture we say no it's up to the individual and it's up to the child yeah and it is way way too Hefty for an

individual to decide that like who am I and then how should I behave and the world some messages in the world say You

Do You Love Is Love The Heart Wants What It Wants and we know that if I or if you

did everything you wanted to do all the time it would be disastrous for you it would be disastrous for the world and so

you cannot have peace when you have no moral Foundation it just won't work it I

mean just think about it but we we know it doesn't work and we're seeing it happen because like you pointed out

these these ideas do not jive with each other and the contradiction is tearing people

up in inside they are isolated they're alone they're hurting and we have to

have compassion and speak truth with love and all them out of it but you know what self-denial has to happen somewhere

and why not follow Jesus and what he says right because he knows us and he died for us and he loves us yeah

absolutely so and do you feel like there's some El of the reason why the syncretism is happening in the first

place does evolution have anything to do with this like this idea that maybe things weren't the way that God said

they were I mean is it true if you pull out kind of that underpinning then what else do we trust or not trust yeah yeah

yeah so like if we're going to take Genesis 1 through 11 as being some kind of myth that human beings made up right

okay then there's no Creator so I mean I was kind of exploring some some

interesting um uh quotes on nihilism I'll pull them up on my phone here in a

second and and it kind of comes back to your point because you know we believe that in the beginning God created the

heavens and the Earth and um and he always was and is and will ever be but

if there is no God behind it all then we're just some Cosmic accident between

two Oblivion and that's really nihilistic it means that there is nothing I mean if you really really

break it down Ian the rest of it's just kind of I mean dressing on the same

thing sure okay let me see if I can find these quotes here we are

so this is from a a scientist named Christopher Manis and it's in a book

called Green rage radical environmentalism and the unmasking of civilization he says this is to your

point uh Dr DeVille that because of the theories of Charles Darwin we must quote

face the fact that the observation of Nature has revealed not one scrap of

evidence that humanity is Superior or special or even particularly more

interesting than say lyen so um lyen is just this kind of

almost like a moss slime type of fungus what do you think of that quote

that's pretty sad yeah yeah certainly the idea of what is your purpose and

we're all designed to have a purpose but if you think that you're the equivalent of liken of all things then you're not

going to feel like there's any value to you right and then there here's another one from just the uh president and

co-founder of people for the ethical treatment of animals so if you go to this radical position um and I'm not

saying that all people that that don't eat meat are are this way but but her

position she once said um when it comes to having a central nervous system and

the ability to feel pain hunger and thirst a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy

so um the view of humanity is like you're the same as a rat or you're the

same as slime how in the world am I going to show respect to my neighbor how am I going to love God the way I should

I should he doesn't even exist and then how are we going to have a moral framework for all of these Hot Topic

issues right but yeah and even if you're a Believer who is raised to think the Bible is true but if you discard the

foundation then it does kind of lead to the conclusion that you can pick and

choose the parts of scripture you like and the parts that you don't because obviously some of it's not true so you know how can we believe the rest of it

and that does seem to be quite the slippery slope I would think yes and you know know we all are

guilty of this we all try to make ourselves God and let's face it he was

here before you and I and he's the ultimate judge so the Bible is um it's

either his word and it's all of it or or there there is no there is no God behind

the god of the Bible it's just something that's made up and I mean one way to look at it is to ask yourself the

question wouldn't you want it to be true that's you want it to be true that Jesus

died to give you a new life and that there's heaven and this is old U Pascal's wager right and if you if you

bet your whole life on these principles of love and honoring God and living a holy life and asking for forgiveness

yeah if you live your whole life and all of a sudden let's say there is nothing I mean you've lived a good life but all of

a sudden you you're thumbing your nose at God and what he says is true that there's a judgment and youve re Reed his

son oh wo is you plus you haven't lived a very good life because you're scrambling everywhere to find the

meaning so taking the Bible it's it's one of those things where we have to bow the knee twice we have to say Lord you

created me I obviously didn't make myself and now I I bow my knee to learn

the Bible the best I can and all of us are in that process yeah absolutely but

but we have to keep coming back and say help me understand this help me to believe it so and pivoting from from

that topic to another one that you recently conducted with the cultural research on voting behaviors among

people identify as Christians um what are the statistics saying as far as

likelihood to actually engage in the political process in at least as far as voting is

concerned right so Dr devil the outcome of this next election is going to depend

on turnout as we know it's very very close I think there 93 electoral um College

votes in seven key States and three of them are I mean it keeps narrowing

saying like you know everybody's trying to jockey in position who's gonna win

and what we discovered when we did our research um let's see this was back in

uh August to September okay yeah is um

that out of all of uh America we have um

268 million Americans who are a voting age we are um forecasting that only

about 53 to 55% will be voting that's across the board and um that's down

considerably since the last pres presidential election and one of the reasons is that people of Faith tend to

be stepping back it looks like maybe 104 um million people people of faith in

the United States are saying um I'm not going to vote and that's including

people that would call themselves Christian or Muslim or or anything okay

now churchgoing self-identified Christians 32 million are saying not for

me wow and what's the reason behind this what did they tell you yeah yeah we you

can go to the cultural research center.com and you can look at the resarch we're going to do one of these

post elction as well and um you know there's several reasons um one of them

is you know churches have done very little um as compared to the past to to

say hey we'll help you get registered we'll give you a voting guide we you know those kind of things or we'll talk

on the topics and it seems like people have been soft pedaling on that and um

we know that uh some of them here here are just three of the reasons 68% % of

those that we surveyed said um they they have a lack of interest in politics and

elections um 57% dislike all the major candidates uh 48% believe the election's

going to be rigged so people have reasons and they're saying I'm not going to exercise this right and I think

that's when we need to exercise it the most is when it's difficult yeah it's it's not difficult to exercise the right

when it's an easy choice exercise about is about something that's difficult in

my classes at Arizona Christian University I want students to to understand the connections between

between Faith um reason and culture and in our culture in the United States we

have so many freedoms and one of the exercises I do is we we write out 10 of

these these freedoms like Mobility you can go whever you want you don't have to have papers to go from one state to the

other right you know you have the right to defend yourself you have a right to do process you have a right to private

property all of these things and they were protected by our Founders and we have them here but one of them franchise

voting okay not everybody had that at the beginning women didn't even have it

until you know a little over a hundred years ago so um it's a very important

right and it's connected to all of them one of the things I do with the students is I say you know rank order these these

rights and and then get rid of one they can't get rid of one and and they know I

mean usually they say like freedom of religion is the most important or whatever but listen friends if you don't

exercise your right to vote when it's difficult when Christians pull out and they don't say what they want our

worldview is not injected into that process and watch the other rights fall

away right and we we have to look at all of life for all of Jesus I would never

want somebody to say yeah I go to church on Sundays but what I watch during the rest of the week is up to me my

entertainment choices are mine I don't feel like giving that to God well we're

told in scripture all over the place about political involvement praying for people um seeking the welfare of the

city and why would we say I'm not comfortable I don't feel peace I you

know all of these reasons why are we doing that and we should say all of life

is all for Jesus my political involvement belongs to him this is very very difficult for me I'm going to vote

anyway and that takes some grit and I'll tell you what if you don't vote that's

voting anyway that that is your statement into this process sure so uh

what you just mentioned in terms of some people will abstain because they don't feel comfortable with it or they they they're the concept of engaging with

that feels awkward to them this almost feels like syncretism all over again where you're taking out a piece that you

don't like from what the scripture says because you're listening to your feelings as being the primary guidance I

mean do do you think that these are related at all absolutely I don't think

we're consistent in our world view world view often is something that's more

caught than thought about and that's why we're told in Romans 121 and2 that we

need to present our bodies as a living and sacrifice I mean think about it in the Old Testament they were told to do

these certain sacrifices as a substitute yeah in the New Testament Jesus is the Ultimate Sub substitute we don't have

that Temple anymore okay we are the temple we are the sacrifice through

Christ and we say my whole life and my mind and it so we're told to renew our

minds in the word and if we're not doing that constantly I think Christians

because they're always swiping on those devices they're always listening to other things the culture says shut up

with your Christianity we don't you know you need to be seen maybe seen but not

heard be quiet and Christians that don't want to vote it's showing what the world

has done to their hearts without them even knowing interesting yeah it is part part and parcel of a world viw problem

yeah very interesting so what have I not asked you that you want to make sure you leave with our

audience oh boy that's a great question um well you know I I think I would like

to just share some scripture and and a couple of things to think about I I'll kind of do a a chastic structure here so

what this means is I'm going to talk about the uh the um

the election first and then I'll end back with mental health because that's the one we started with but um yeah I

mean with with scripture we need to remember that that God is over all of life and and he calls us to obey him in

every area and um we need to seek the good of the nation as we're told in

Jeremiah 29 um and we're salt light in Matthew uh

513 and 14 if we don't vote um someone else with a different world

view is going to do their calculus and make their uh commitment and we should be engaged I don't think we should be

obsessed but we should uh seek that good

in um in our country and and voting is um you know part of one of the gifts

that we have it's also a responsibility and then talking about um mental health

I you know um we we have a lot of people that are suffering with mental health in

our country about 60 million one out of every four adults is and we could take

it to heart um certain passages in the Bible like Psalm 425 why my soul are you

downcast why so Disturbed within me put your hope in God for I will yet Praise

Him My Savior and my God and I I love passages like that because as human

beings we have the ability to be self-reflective and self-directive so notice he's talking to

his own soul he's asking why Adam are you downcast and why do you feel this way

talk about it whatever that issue is y okay now I'm gonna take that issue I'm

gonna bring it to God that very thing and I'm and you know what prayers um

prayers are a conversation with god and sometimes they last a moment sometimes

they last a decade yeah and and I I talk with the Lord about all those things but

we don't have to deal with it ourselves we can come back to the biblical worldview and our God we don't have to shoulder we're not supposed to he's God

we're not and Jesus said this John 14:27 peace I leave with you my peace I give

to you I do not give you as the world gives do not let your hearts be troubled do not be afraid so we're always looking

for The Greener path ures you know I want the greener grass we shouldn't do that we should follow our Lord he's the

Good Shepherd he leads us to the Green Pastures and boy brothers and sisters he does there are times we walk through the

valley of the shadow of death but we're not fearing because we follow him and he leads us in those paths for his name's

sake and so if you want greener pastures come back to the shepherd he'll take you there and and he's going to take you

through all kinds of Hills and Valleys in this in this life but being close to the shepherd that's what it's about amen

absolutely so where can people go to learn more about you and the cultural Research Center and uh Arizona Christian

University well if any of your listeners uh want to send me an email you can find my contact and I'd love to interact with

you um and that's at Arizona christian.edu but uh the cultural reach

Research Center can be found there and we also have a direct uh website which is cultural research

center.com awesome and all of the studies that we talked about today are also going to be on there with the

questions asked in all the rest of it and many many more more awesome well

thank you so much Dr resmon for your time this has been great thank you blessings blessings

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