I was interested to read about the latest survey of American spiritual life by The Barna Group indicating that despite appropriately wise cultural stress on the importance of religious dialogue, very few people end up changing their beliefs or practices as a result of exposure to other religious or worldviews. Obviously there is tremendous merit in learning as much as we can about the content of other faiths, but one might have expected such engagement to lead to some alteration or adaptation in people’s existing belief structure. Apparently, such change rarely happens. Only seven percent of those surveyed could think of any beliefs or practices they had altered in the last five years.
An attached link to the article about this new survey offers one interesting interpretation of these findings:
[The results raise] questions about the impact of church-related activity – not so much whether or not impact can be achieved, but if the courses of action currently pursued are capable of facilitating and reinforcing significant change. These results are consistent with a pattern identified in Barna’s studies over the years: most of the religious beliefs, behaviors and expectations that define a person’s life have been developed and embraced by the age of 13; relatively little changes after that time. The current study underscores how little movement there is in people’s religious thinking once they become an adult.