In the days following Easter Sunday its probably a good guess that a lot of people are thinking more about Jesus. We’ll tell you what researchers say they’re thinking.
A Barna study released days before Easter that looked at how adults see and relate to the central figure of Christianity, shows that almost all Americans believe that Jesus Christ was a real person who actually lived, and that the majority of Americans have made a commitment to Him.
Ninety-three percent of Americans say they believe Jesus is a real person who lived on earth, according to the survey of a representative sample of adults over the age of 18 in each of the 50 states.
Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults say they have made a commitment to Jesus that is still important in their lives today.
31 percent believe He was uniquely called to reveal God’s purpose in the world; 9 percent say Jesus embodied the best that is possible in each person; and 8 percent say He was a great man and a great teacher, but not divine.
The survey, whose sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points and at the 95 percent confidence level, also found that 59 percent of Americans have no doubt that Jesus will return to earth someday.
A separate, Barna study found that while an increasing number of Americans are reportedly abandoning the institutional church many of them still believe in God and practice faith outside its walls, describing them as those who “love Jesus but not the church.”