We launched the CRC in March with the vision of advancing the Kingdom of God through cultural and biblical worldview research that would equip us to develop resources for cultural transformation. And over the last nine months, even in the midst of a global pandemic, God has given us success beyond our expectations.
Not only did we complete our signature American Worldview Inventory and distribute it to a list of subscribers that grew more than 500%, we also:
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- Created and began administering the ACU Student Worldview Inventory, which was designed by Dr. Barna in collaboration with ACU faculty and administrators to specifically measure the worldview of all our students during their academic career. This groundbreaking project makes ACU the only university in the world to actually evaluate and analyze the biblical worldview development of its student body. These findings will enable the University to continually make improvements to our academic and spiritual life programs as we measure their effectiveness in developing a biblical worldview in the next generation of Christian leaders.
- Developed partnerships with other established, well-known Christian ministries, including the Family Research Council, one of the nation’s premier pro-family organizations in Washington, DC, and Summit Ministries, a leading organization in training the next generation in biblical worldview. And we have others in the works for 2021!
- Conducted two groundbreaking studies of a key conservative Christian segment Dr. Barna calls “SAGE-Cons”—Spiritually Active Governance Engaged Conservative Christians—in studies conducted both before and after the 2020 election. This timely research explored the impact of the biblical worldview in the public square in real-time, and provided a foundation for additional innovative research and analysis in the future.
- Completed dozens of media appearances by Dr. Barna after each AWVI 2020 release, reaching hundreds of thousands of people with information about the importance of biblical worldview and the current state of the nation’s worldview. Our research was also featured in leading media outlets, including Western Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, The Washington Times, Christianity Today, Christian Post, and Patheos.
These successes and milestones were a source of great encouragement in 2020, but we believe the best is yet to come! In the coming year we plan to:
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- Make our American Worldview Inventory survey available to churches and individuals in order to help more people measure and understand the state of their personal worldview
With each release of our worldview research, we were contacted by numerous individuals and churches wanting to take the worldview study themselves! As this demand kept pouring in after each new release we decided to initiate an exciting new project – creating an online worldview survey based on the American Worldview Inventory—and make it available to churches and individuals in 2021.
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- Launch the first-ever nationwide study of “competing worldviews”
We learned from AWVI 2020 that only 6% of U.S. adults possess a biblical worldview. So the next question we will answer is what other worldviews are most common? Marxist-Socialism? Relativism? Secularism? Postmodernism? The 2021 version of the American Worldview Inventory will seek to identify the most common competing worldviews (those other than the biblical worldview) that are embraced by American adults. We’re developing that survey now, with a plan to put it “in the field” early in 2021 and release preliminary findings in April.
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- Publish a number of practical, relevant books through Arizona Christian University Press.
In his forthcoming book (expected Spring 2021), Dr. Barna will write the definitive “state of American worldview” publication of the 21st century. At the same time, we’ll be working with our faculty to develop an ACU biblical worldview classroom text. And we are hoping to publish additional worldview resources to better equip Christians to transform culture with God’s truth through ACU’s new publishing entity, Arizona Christian University Press.
We’re excited about the successes we’ve had in 2020 and look forward to increasing our influence and impact on the Kingdom in 2021.
To receive the latest research findings from the Cultural Research Center, click here.
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