ARE MANY CHRISTIANS POST-CHRISTIAN?

Last month, the Barna Group ranked Chattanooga No. 1 on its list of Most Churched cities and for the fourth time in five years No. 1 on the California-based research group’s list of Most Bible-Minded cities.

Now, Barna is back, and it’s turned the tables. The organization is out with its list of Most Post-Christian cities in the United States. In it, it is attempting to rank cities based on their lack of Christian identity, belief and practice.

All polls — we believe unfortunately — show rates of church attendance, religious affiliation, belief in God, participation in prayer and Bible reading in the country have been dropping for decades.

But, the faithful may be assuaged, any city on a list of Most Churched and Most Bible-Minded is not going to rank highly on a Most Post-Christian list, and Chattanooga doesn’t. Indeed, of 100 cities listed in the survey, Chattanooga is 96th. Only the Tri-Cities in Tennessee and Virginia, Memphis, Jackson, Miss., and Shreveport, La., are less post-Christian than Chattanooga.

The most post-Christian cities, curiously, are four pairs and one trio of cities, some as many as 50 miles apart. Topping the list are Portland and Auburn, Maine, followed by Boston-Manchester, N.H., Albany-Schenectady-Troy, N.Y., Providence, R.I.-New Bedford, Mass., and Burlington, Vt.-Plattsburgh, N.Y.

The rankings are based on the percentage of a city’s population that meets Barna’s post-Christian metrics. So, for instance, 57 percent of the population meet the metrics in the Portland-Auburn combo, while only 19 percent of the population fit the bill in Chattanooga.

The story behind the headlines for Chattanoogans or residents of any city who consider themselves Christian is how they rate against Barna’s post-Christian metrics. Individuals may be “churched” (59 percent in Chattanooga) and “Bible-minded” (50 percent here), but, if we’re accurate with ourselves, many of us may find ourselves tilting toward “post-Christian.”

See for yourself by checking out the 16 metrics. If individuals meet nine of the 16, Barna says they qualify as “post-Christian”; if they meet 13 or more, they may be tabbed “highly post-Christian.”

› Do not believe in God: It would be difficult to keep up the charade of being a Christian if this is true.

› Identify as atheist or agnostic: If you do this, by definition, you have no Christian identity.

› Have never made a commitment to Jesus: Since “Christian” comes from a Greek word meaning “little Christ,” a commitment to the incarnation and son of God is essential for followers of the faith.

› Disagree that faith is important in their lives: A Christian identity is the very essence of having faith, which is, thus important for any Christian.

After those, it gets a little tricky. Degrees of faith, gray areas and time factors are involved.

› Not born again: The term, quoted by Jesus in the Bible, refers to a spiritual second birth as opposed to a physical first birth. But the term’s loose use can lead people to believe that their authentic spiritual life is not real.

› Disagree the Bible is accurate: This metric is bound to confuse many people because the Bible clearly uses figurative terms, apocalyptic language and allegories. “Accuracy,” then, becomes a dispute between the literal accuracy of every word and the book’s general inspirational truth.

› Agree that Jesus committed sins: The Bible says Jesus was sinless, and while he was fully God, he also was fully human. The Bible also says he grew in “wisdom and stature,” which might lead one to believe he gained wisdom from his mistakes, which may not necessarily have been sins.

› Do not feel a responsibility to “share their faith”: The Bible calls for Christians to do this — “go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” — but individual Christians may interpret this to mean a one-on-one conversation when there are many ways in which people can share their faith.

The following eight metrics are qualified by how recently they’ve been done. Practicing Christians do all of the following regularly but admittedly aren’t perfect.

› Have not prayed to God (in the last week).

› Have not donated money to a church (in the last year).

› Have not attended a Christian church (in the last six months).

› Have not read the Bible (in the last week).

› Bible engagement scale low (have not read the Bible in the past week and disagree strongly or somewhat that the Bible is accurate).

› Have not volunteered at church (in the last week).

› Have not attended Sunday school (in the last week).

› Have not attended a religious small group (in the last week).

According to Barna, 56 percent of Chattanoogans are “practicing Christians,” meaning they attended church at least once in the past month and say their faith is very important to them. However, based on frequency of practice and gray areas of misinterpretation, a number of those might fit into the post-Christian category.

For the Christian faithful, lest they become bogged down in the metrics, it’s a matter of following the oft-cited Christian meme: “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

The faith must be practiced.