Much Ado About Numbers

With the publication of the recent study by ARIS, the American Religious Identification Survey, which shows an increase in the number of folks who claim to have "no religion" and a corresponding decline in the overall religiosity of Americans, the 'survey' wars have heated up.

The news headlines reporting the ARIS results shouted that America was losing its reeligious tilt. Then came stories suggesting that all polls really show are the biases of its authors. Others, wisely so I think, pointed out that no poll can capture the complexity of the religious orientation. Finally, in a column on Religious Dispatches, Konstantin Petrenko states his belief that all the ARIS survey shows is the new American apathy toward religion and things religious.

This is not the first tempest to be found in the religious tea pot. Earlier in the year, a group published a study that charged the people at Baylor University, a school associated with Southern Baptists, with manipulating data. The Baylor poll showed an increase in the religious orientation of America. Of course, there then followed days of rebuttals by the Baylor folks and then rebuttals of the rebuttals.

My questions about all of this are simple: If a person is asked, "Do you consider yourself to be a religious person?" and answers either "NO" or "YES", does it really tell us anything? If it does, does it matter whether 12% or 15% or 25% of the population answers "NO"? Do you care if you live in a country in which only 76% of the people identify themselves as Christian? If you do care, does it then matter whether those people understand Christianity in the same way you do?

Apocalyptic Warnings

On Saturday, March 7, David Wilkerson, he of The Cross and The Switchblade fame from the 1960's, sent out a warning to all of the people who were part of his blogosphere contacts. I have copied the first part of his blog below:

AN URGENT MESSAGE
I am compelled by the Holy Spirit to send out an urgent message to all on our mailing list, and to friends and to bishops we have met all over the world.

AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN. IT IS GOING TO BE SO FRIGHTENING, WE ARE ALL GOING TO TREMBLE - EVEN THE GODLIEST AMONG US.

For ten years I have been warning about a thousand fires coming to New York City. It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires—such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago.

There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting—including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath. In Psalm 11 it is written,

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (v. 3).

God is judging the raging sins of America and the nations. He is destroying the secular foundations.

Wilkerson closes his blog with these words:
Note: I do not know when these things will come to pass, but I know it is not far off. I have unburdened my soul to you. Do with the message as you choose.

Needless to say, this has created quite a firestorm among the religious blogging community. There has been enough controversy that, a week later, on Friday, Mar 13, Gary Wilkerson defended David's choice to share his message of impending doom in this way:
It is the task of a true prophet to warn. We have recently heard such a clear warning of perilous days just ahead of us. The prophet is like a man who comes to warn a shepherd that ravenous wolves are approaching.

How do you react to such things? Do you give the message enough credibility that you would look to leave the Northeast, just in case? Does a message like this from a minister like this have more truth than the messages of impending doom from Nostradamus recounted in the supermarket tabloids? If you are a part of a church, how would you respond if someone asks you, "What do you think about this?"