Christian Beliefs Increase in 2009

A Harris Interactive® Poll of 2,303 American adults on the Internet, taken Nov. 2-11, 2009, found that 82% of Americans believe in God and 73% believe Jesus is God and/or the Son of God.

These numbers reflect an increase of two percentage points from the same Harris poll taken in 2008. No wonder the number of movies with at least some positive Christian content or values increased in 2009 compared to the previous two years.

By contrast, belief in Darwin’s theory of evolution, ghosts, reincarnation, UFOs, astrology, and witches all seems to be dropping.

These positive trends reflect what God teaches us about God, Jesus Christ, science, and theology in the ancient, historical, inerrant documents of the Bible, whose historical reliability and truth have been confirmed by more than 100 years of modern historical, scientific, and textual research.

Harris Interactive®, 12/15/09

Category	Believe In	Don’t Believe	Not Sure
God	82%	9%	9%
Miracles	76%	13%	12%
Heaven	75%	13%	12%
Jesus is God and/or Son of God	73%	16%	11%
Angels	72%	15%	12%
Life after death	71%	10%	19%
The resurrection of Christ	70%	17%	13%
The Virgin Birth	61%	22%	16%
Hell	61%	24%	17%
The Devil	60%	27%	13%
Darwin’s theory of evolution	45%	32%	22%
Ghosts	42%	38%	20%
Creationism	40%	30%	30%
UFOs	32%	39%	29%
Astrology	26%	52%	22%
Witches	23%	59%	17%
Reincarnation	20%	53%	28%

A poll of 1,017 American adults taken by Gallup in May 2008 found that 78% of Americans believe in God, 15% believe in a “universal spirit” or “higher power,” and 6% believe in neither.

The poll also showed that Republicans are more likely to believe in God (89%) than Democrats (77%) and Independents (70%). Nearly a quarter of Independents believe in a universal spirit or higher power (22%), compared to 14% of Democrats and 9% of Republicans.

Finally, the poll found that Americans in the South were much more likely than Americans in the West to believe in God, 86% versus 59%.

Gallup Poll®, May 2008