The Church Answers Podcast
#168 The Future of the CHRINOs (Christians in Name Only): Two Views
Welcome to the Church Answers podcast presented by Chaney & Associates. Chaney & Associates are the accounting firm for the church. Now get ready for fast-paced insights on key issues affecting the local church today. We release three episodes each week, so make sure you've seen or heard them all. And now, here is the CEO of Church Answers, Tom Rayner. You have been canned and patient. How do I know you've been canned and patient? I really don't. But you've allowed me to go through what today is the sixth episode on the Chronos. I know my episodes are really short, around 10 minutes. These short bursts of information. That's how we design it. So we have a longer podcast, Rayner, on leadership. But doing six episodes on this, to my knowledge, in the 168 episodes that we've done and this fairly new podcast, we have never done one with six episodes. No, we've done some with three, but not six. The reason I wanted to do that is we're talking about a group of people, a demographic group called Chronos, C-H-R-I-N-O, it's an acronym. The Chronos are Christians in name only. They're people who say that they are Christians. But to the best of our discernment, we use doctrinal filters, which means we use biblical questions to see how they respond to them. Not a perfect methodology, we admit that, but we use that to find out if they say they are Christian, or they really are Christian. Once again, we cannot know the hearts of people. But many times we understand where they are, by the way they answer biblical questions. So we've gone into multitudes of information. I've got amazed how much we covered in five 10-minute episodes, and then we're on the six 10-minute episode about the Chronos, and we're going to look at, "Okay, what is the future of this demographic group?" I love the fact that we've brought Ryan Burge onto church answers. I think he is the best Christian data scientist alive today. He introduced us to the concept of the nuns, N-O-N-E-S, and I just love watching his research. It was some of his research that inspired me to do my own deep dive on the Chronos, the Christians, and name only, because he will look at that and he'll say, "This is what we need to know about this data," and even though he presents it objectively, where he can speak to atheists, secularists, to liberal progressives, he's able to do so with objectivity, but he still has his own convictions, and I've tried to look at the Chronos objectively from a demographic point of view while maintaining my convictions, so I'm hoping the information is helpful, but I'm also hoping the information inspires you to reach beyond your comfort level, to reach people with the Gospel. Okay, with that being said, I've got a lot of information on the Chronos, and go back and look at it. Just always remember that we are so grateful to Chaney and Associates for being our sponsor. They are the accounting firm for the church. They have this, they're all cloud-based, they're able to do your bookkeeping, your payroll, taxes, etc. They are the accounting firm for the church. Thank you, Steve Chaney, thank you, Chaney and Associates, for being our ministry partner. They're the ones that have small churches, church plants, all the way to make your churches. They got you covered, Chaney and Associates. And in name only, what's the future of this group? They're a large group right now. A number of them are in our churches today. They're a large group, a number of them are in the general population. There was a time in our recorded history, our database history, where over 8 out of 10 people in America would affirm that they are Christians. That number is now down below 70%, but it's still a significantly large number in our nation. Now here's what we know. We know that there's that many who claim to be Christians and just for simplicity, let's say 7 out of 10, it's not actually that high. But let's say 7 out of 10, but we also know that there are a number of them who claim it who are not. We can get on the other side of their salvation and they will tell us stories about when they were Christians in name only. And we talked about the different types of groups. You've got the church to crinos. Those who are still in churches, many of them that have membership and people don't even know that they're not Christians. We've got the cultural crinos who became Christians because they thought it claimed a name of Christians because they thought it was the acceptable thing to do, to be accepted in culture. And then you have the unchurch crinos that claim that they're the name of Christ, maybe for family reasons or some type of heritage where they say, of course, I'm a Christian. My family's always been Catholic. My family's always been Methodist, whatever the case may be. And so they claim the name of Christian, even though they're not Christian themselves. So my point is there's a large number of people who are Christians in name only. Where which direction is this group headed? And when I see mean direction, will this group get larger or will this group get smaller? Let me give you two two views, two perspectives. Okay, the group that says those who say that this group will get larger. They're basically saying that Christianity as a cultural affirmation, if not a religious or faith-based affirmation, will be around for a long time. But we're going to have more and more people who claim the name of Christian, but don't affirm who Christ is. And so that view is they're going to be a lot more people who say that they are Christians, but who are not compared to today. And there's good reason to come up with that perspective, because there are many people that if you ask them an initial question, we'll say, I'm a Christian. And there will probably be more of those in the future. That many of the people that are in churches today may pull out of churches, but they will still say, I am a Christian. So there's one group that says they're going to increase the number. There's another group that says they're going to decline the number. Now the reason they say that the group is going to decline the number is because the reasons that people, the reasons that people say that they are Christians when they're not are multifold, but let's review some of them to be accepted into culture because my family was. Those are two of the biggest. Let's just part there for a minute. Those are two of the biggest. However, cultural Christians or cultural crinos, they are, we know that they are going down in number. Our surveys show that. That's one of the reasons that church attendance is going down because many people who claim the name of Christ were in these churches, but then I longer feel like they have to be a part of the church. So we know that cultural Christians, our cultural randos will decrease in number. And then we look at the group of unchurched crinos who are saying, my family member was a Christian. So I'm going to claim the name of Christ or I was a Catholic or some Protestant denomination. And so I'm a Christian. Here's what we're finding. Not only are cultural Christians becoming less in number because the general population and feel like it has to claim that they're a Christian to be accepted anymore. But also historical Christians are crinos are reducing in number because they're now beyond the generation that they claimed were Christians or parents or grandparents. Now we have more generations beyond that. And those who are truly Christians have gone on to be with the Lord and they who are here, the memory of those family members is distant if they even know them at all. So you can hear my bias in this. My bias is very, very clear. I believe the crinos are going to go down in number. I believe those who are Christian in name only will go down. Here's what I see happening. Those who affirm the name of Christ are going to have to take a stand. They are going to be those who will truly stand for Christ. And then the rest of them won't. And they won't see they won't feel the burden, the pressure. They won't feel the need to claim the name of Christ. Just because the crinos from my perspective are going down in number does not mean the urgency is less because these who are crinos will end up being people who don't claim the name of Christ, but they're still not followers of Christ and they will still need evangelism. They will still need the gospel. So whichever perspective you take are the crinos going to increase in number or they're going to decrease in number, which is the position I take. I think it has more demographic validity than the former. All of them who are not truly Christians need to hear and know the gospel of Christ. That is why we've mentioned the Hope Initiative is one possible solution for your church and for you personally. You can check that at churchanswers.com and the Hope Initiative. But what we want to just say to you is regardless which direction the crinos go numerically, we can tell you almost beyond a shadow of a doubt that there will be many people to reach with the gospel. That's the most important thing and that's how I want to end this series on the crinos. You've now had six separate episodes. Last week we had three, this week we had three. Now you have kind of a complete library on the crinos. We hope it's been helpful. Thanks to you who are watching us on YouTube. Hey, subscribe to us. Give us a thumbs up. There it is. Thumbs up. I didn't put it in the screen. And then those of you who are listening on your favorite podcasting app, give us a rating or a review, whatever you can do to get the word out. And while we're doing that, we'll make sure to thank Chaney for giving us the support to be able to get that word out. Thank you as always for being a part of the church answers podcast. Next week, I'm going to take a journey down memory lane. I'll tell you more about that later. See you in the next church answers podcast. You have been listening to the church answers podcast presented by Chaney and Associates. Chaney and Associates are the accounting firm for the church. When needs to focus on ministry, Chaney will focus on finances. Also please subscribe and give a review to the church answers podcast on YouTube and on your favorite podcasting app. [MUSIC PLAYING] You