In his 2020 American Worldview Inventory, Christian researcher George Barna concluded that biblical belief in the United States was an at all-time low. Three short years later in 2023, his repeat of the same survey revealed the reality that things have only gotten shockingly worse. Here is what the research shows, and what we as the last of the biblical believers can do about it.

According to Barna, while nearly 70% of Americans still consider themselves Christians, most Americans—de­spite any profession of faith—fall into a category that he has named the World Citizen. He describes these as “em­brac[ing] a few biblical principles, but generally believ[ing] and behav[ing] in ways that are distinct from biblical teaching.” In 2020, the percentage of World Citizens was 69%—already an enormous number, and more than enough to offset the so-called Christian self-identification of most Americans. But in just three years, that number rose by almost a fifth to an overwhelming 82%.

The next, much smaller group that Barna found were the Emergent Followers. These Americans, Barna says, also do not have a biblical worldview, but still hold “a substantial number of beliefs and behaviors consistent with biblical principles.” However, the number of Emergent Followers has fallen dramatically since 2020 from 25% to 14%. These, who might be the most open to true biblical belief, have only continued to shrink—and fast.

Finally, Barna identified the Integrated Disciples. These hold a biblical worldview, believing in such things as absolute moral truth, and the total accuracy of all the teachings of the Bible. In 2020, the number Integrated Disciples was a measly 6%. And that was bad enough. But fast-forward to 2023 and the same research showed that the number of Integrated Disciples plummeted from 6% to 4%—a loss of almost 7 million bible-believers. Yet the worst news is that Barna also found that among Americans under 30, those with a biblical worldview were only a miserable 1%.

Say hello to the last of the biblical believers in America.

Barna wrote in his report, “[The] biblical worldview is shuffling toward the edge of the cliff. As things stand today, biblical theism is much closer to extinction in America than it is to influencing the soul of the nation. The current incidence of adults with the biblical worldview is the lowest since I began measuring it in the early 1990s.” He goes on to say that “young people, in particular, are largely isolated from biblical thought in our society and are the most aggressive at rejecting biblical principles in our culture.”

Today’s Body of Messiah in America—old, shrinking and dying—reflects the failure of generations of believers to instill not only biblical values, but biblical understanding. It reflects a weakness that didn’t protect children from worldly influences, leaving them to become spiritually soft, unprepared, and easily molded by voices that question the truth of God’s word—to which their empty minds and devoid spirits had no reply and no resistance. In a word, the Body of Messiah in America has generationally failed the one job that Yeshua gave us: to make disciples.

We now have two choices before us: ignore this reality and do nothing, or accept reality—accept responsibility—and work today to leave an inheritance for our children’s children tomorrow. It is natural to see these statistics, and then to grieve and feel like giving up—to see these trends as impossible to overcome. But we must remember that God is faithful to keep His promises. We must choose Messiah over hopelessness. As dismal as the future looks, we cannot let this foreknowledge beat us down, but instead motivate us to get up and get to work.

In Philippians 2:15-16, Paul exhorts us to be “unblemished in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are shown to be as lights in the world, holding out the word of life” (mjlt). Our God has used the smallest of armies (Judges 7) and the least of all peoples (De. 7:7) to change the world, so, for Him, 4% is more than enough. Let us recommit ourselves to bearing the standard of Scripture and reorder our priorities so that the making of true disciples will be possible once again.

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