New research into the reasons why Australians don’t accept Christian faith has been released by Olive Tree Media. Olive Tree Media produces a range of Christian media resources including television series, daily radio spots, e-mail devotions and devotional books.

“We decided a few months ago that we wanted to address some of the ‘blocker’ issues that stop people in the Australian community from coming to faith,” said Olive Tree Media’s CEO, Karl Faase. “Whilst we can guess what these might be, we realised we didn’t actually know,” he said. “Once we discovered these ‘blockers’, we plan to produce a television series that addresses them,” said Karl.

Olive Tree Media commissioned McCrindle Research to carry out the research. The research revealed the top ten barriers to Christian faith as being: Church abuse, hypocrisy, judging others, religious wars, suffering, issues around money, church being outdated, hell and condemnation, homosexuality and exclusivity.

“The survey was completed by 1,094 Australians from a national representative sample,” said Mark McCrindle from McCrindle Research. “This was followed up with three focus groups made up of non-Christians. We had a group in their twenties, Generation Y; those who were starting families, Generation X and then baby-boomers,” said Mark.

“We started with the national census data which reveals that three out of five Australians tick the Christianity box,” Mark said. “However when we added the option of Spirituality to that question, the figure dropped to forty percent,” he said. “Drilling down even further we discovered that only eight percent indicated that they were involved in practicing their religion or worshipped as part of a group.”

The survey asked people to identify who influenced them the most when it came to religious belief with the dominant answers being parents and family, followed by mass media, social media and the internet.

“When asked what impact high profile atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens had on their beliefs, three out of four said they had had no impact at all,” Mark said. 51% surveyed said they were not open to exploring other religious views and practices, however 41% were ‘somewhat’ or ‘slightly’ open. A key reason for the research was to discover the ‘blocker issues’ that stopped people from considering Christian faith. These varied in order, depending on the background of the group  surveyed, but a common key blocker was the church’s stance on homosexuality, with 29% of Australians saying that this completely blocked them in engaging with Christianity.

The concept of hell was another key blocker with 25% stating that the idea of a loving God who allowed people to go to hell, stopped them from engaging with Christianity. When it came to Christians and the church, the key issue Australians had were church scandals and reports of abuse, with 55% indicating that these issues had a massive negative influence on their perceptions. One interesting result was how Australians viewed celebrity endorsement of Christianity. “The biggest turns-offs were public figures or celebrities discussing their faith,” Mark said. “Australians are seemingly distrustful of the motives behind public declaration of religious beliefs,” he said.

In launching the report, Dr Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney said he was encouraged by the survey’s findings on the influence of families on a person’s Christian values. “The transmission of faith through families is tremendously significant,” he said. “When I was principal of Moore College and I asked an incoming student how they came to faith, families were very significant.” Archbishop Jensen added that the survey showed that the influence of friends was also very important. “Sixty per cent of Australians don’t know a Christian,” he said.

Following the release of the survey, Karl Faase said that there were a number of steps that Olive Tree Media wanted to see as outcomes. “The next thing is to continue the conversation, to get people to talk about what is blocking people from Christian faith and how we interact with our community for the Gospel,” he said. “We need to keep in mind that this is not ‘faith by focus group’, where we find out what people want and give it to them. It’s finding out what blocks people from hearing our message and being as clear as we can about what we do believe,” Karl said.”

"Then we will use the research to develop an Apologetics Series for television, DVD, web and radio. We plan on a 10 part series that looks at each of the top ten ‘blocker issues’ and gives an accessible response so that the average Australian can engage with the material and make an informed belief and lifestyle choice,” Karl said. Details of the plans for the series and more information on the survey are available from the Olive Tree Media web site. (http://www.olivetreemedia.com.au/)

Some interesting insights from the research include:

• Overall, 1 in 2 Australians do not identity with a religion. 40% consider themselves Christian. 31% do not identify with a religion or spiritual belief, while another 19% consider themselves spiritual but not religious.
• Parents and family have a strong influence on people's perceptions of Christians and Christianity.
• There is significant "warmth" towards Christianity by a large proportion of Australians.
• The church's views on homosexuality, hell and science were seen as potential faith blockers.
• There was a surprisingly high awareness of some of the core teachings of Jesus, although 6% of Australians believe that "Such is life" was a statement made by Jesus (actually it was Ned Kelly!). More surprisingly, 28% of those surveyed had no idea when Jesus lived and 27% believed he lived in ancient times (BC).

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