The State of American Theology Study 2020

Abstract

The State of American Theology Study 2020 is a biennial survey commissioned by Ligonier Ministries and conducted by LifeWay Research to measure American adults' beliefs on a range of theological, moral, and doctrinal topics, including the nature of God, the Trinity, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin, salvation, the Bible, and contemporary ethical issues. The survey used a demographically balanced online panel, with 3,002 completed interviews conducted March 10-18, 2020, weighted to balance gender, age, ethnicity, income, region, and religion. Results are also broken out by demographic subgroups (region, age, gender, education, income) and by religious characteristics (religious service attendance, Christian tradition, and self-identified Evangelical belief).

Findings for Latter-day Saints

• 94% of American adults agree (strongly or somewhat) that God is a perfect being who cannot make a mistake.
• 72% agree with the orthodox Trinitarian statement that there is one true God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• 63% agree that God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
• 66% agree that Biblical accounts of the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate and that the event actually occurred.
• 55% agree with the heterodox/Arian-leaning statement that Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.
• 51% agree that Jesus was a great teacher but was not God, indicating substantial rejection of the deity of Christ even among professed believers.
• 56% agree that the Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true.
• 48% agree that the Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches.
• 65% agree that everyone sins a little but most people are good by nature, reflecting a minority-orthodox view on human depravity.
• 56% agree that God counts a person as righteous not because of works but only because of faith in Jesus Christ (justification by faith alone).
• 56% agree that hell is a real place where certain people will be punished forever.
• 61% agree there will be a time when Jesus Christ returns to judge all people who have lived.
• 65% agree that Jesus Christ's death on the cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of sin.
• 60% agree that only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as Savior receive God's free gift of eternal salvation.
• 51% agree that abortion is a sin, while 50% agree that sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin.
• 54% agree that religious belief is a matter of personal opinion and not about objective truth, reflecting widespread relativism about religious claims.

Limitations in methodology

The survey relied on a demographically balanced online panel rather than a full probability sample, which can introduce coverage and self-selection biases despite weighting for gender, age, ethnicity, income, region, and religion. The reported margin of error (+/-2.0% at 95% confidence) applies to the full sample; subgroup margins are considerably higher and not always reported. Responses are self-reported agreement with single-sentence theological statements, which can be sensitive to question wording and framing (e.g., double-barreled or leading phrasing) rather than reflecting deep theological understanding, and the survey was commissioned by an explicitly Reformed/Evangelical ministry (Ligonier), which may shape the selection and framing of items toward doctrines of particular interest to that tradition.

Related studies

• 2018TheologyEvangelicalism

  The State of American Theology Study 2018

  Ligonier Ministries, LifeWay Research

• 2022TheologyTrinity

  The State of Theology 2022

  Ligonier Ministries, Lifeway Research

• 2016

Cite this study

Ministries, L., Research, L. (2020). The State of American Theology Study 2020. Commissioned by Ligonier Ministries, conducted by LifeWay Research; published at TheStateofTheology.com. https://lwresearch21.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Ligonier-State-of-Theology-2020-Report.pdf

Ligonier Ministries, et al.. "The State of American Theology Study 2020." Commissioned by Ligonier Ministries, conducted by LifeWay Research; published at TheStateofTheology.com, 2020. https://lwresearch21.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Ligonier-State-of-Theology-2020-Report.pdf.

@article{ligonier_state_of_theology_2020,
  title = {The State of American Theology Study 2020},
  author = {Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research},
  year = {2020},
  journal = {Commissioned by Ligonier Ministries, conducted by LifeWay Research; published at TheStateofTheology.com},
  url = {https://lwresearch21.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Ligonier-State-of-Theology-2020-Report.pdf},
}