When I first heard the words of Jesus in the Great Commission, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, . . . teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20), my mind turned to distant lands. I pictured places such as Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, and Nepal, places where the gospel has yet to take deep root. Surely that was “the world” (Mark 16:15) to which Christ was referring. My own setting, with its easy access to churches and Bibles, didn’t seem to qualify.
But as I grew in my understanding of Christ’s command, I came to see that this call to make disciples is not confined to foreign missions. It’s for every Christian, wherever the Lord has placed him or her. My “world” and the “nations” include my neighbors, my community, and even my own family. The task of proclaiming Christ and making disciples belongs not only to missionaries but to all who follow Him.
What I also hadn’t grasped was how urgent this task is within the church itself, especially in the West. The need for discipleship is staggering. According to findings from the State of Theology survey, conducted every other year by Ligonier Ministries in partnership with Lifeway Research, more than half of self-identified evangelicals in the United States believe that the Holy Spirit is a force rather than a personal being. Many who call themselves Christians do not rightly understand the third person of the Trinity and therefore do not rightly understand God Himself. And if we don’t understand God Himself, we’re disconnected from the very core of historic Christian belief.
Even more striking, 64 percent of evangelicals agree with the statement, “Everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God.” This belief undermines the doctrine of original sin and obscures the very reason that Christ came into the world—to save sinners. Perhaps the reason that so many evangelicals agree with this statement is that we’ve adopted the world’s way of thinking. Most people in our culture tend to believe that everyone is basically good and that if we do enough good, we’ll go to heaven. But if we do not understand our guilt before God, we will not rightly understand the grace of the gospel.
Another revealing statistic is that 83 percent of evangelicals affirm that “God loves all people the same way.” It is true that God is love (1 John 4:8) and that He sent His Son because of His love for the world (John 3:16). Yet Scripture also makes clear that God’s love is not the same in every sense. There is a general love that He extends to all (Matt. 5:45) but also a particular, saving love for His people (Rom. 9:13). If God loved everyone in the same way, why are some saved while others are condemned? These questions touch the heart of theology and reveal misunderstandings about who God is.
Another statistic stands out. While more than 70 percent of evangelicals affirm that God is one God in three persons, 65 percent also believe that God accepts the worship of all religions. So even as many affirm the Trinity, they are willing to set that truth aside for the sake of religious pluralism. The result is a theology that holds orthodoxy in one hand and denies it with the other.
You can explore more of the data at thestateoftheology.com. One reason that Ligonier conducts this survey is that Ligonier, at its core, is a discipleship ministry. Our purpose is to teach people who God is and what He has revealed in His Word. To do that well, we must first understand what people—especially Christians—actually believe. Over the years, we have found that while many Christians in the United States know something about God and Scripture, that knowledge is often partial, confused, or mixed with error. There are points of clarity, but they sit beside troubling contradictions.
The picture that emerges is one of fragmented discipleship. If I were to describe the state of evangelical theology today, I’d compare it to Swiss cheese—there’s substance, but also many holes. The results are concerning, yet they also remind us that the church’s mission has not changed. Cultural Christianity might persist in some fashion, but the call to make disciples remains. True discipleship, rooted in Scripture and centered on Christ, is needed as much in our own neighborhoods as it is among the nations.
What does this mean for us? It means that we begin with prayer. We should pray that God would disciple the nations, that His Spirit would renew the hearts of His people, and that churches everywhere would be steadfast in the work of discipleship. But prayer must lead to action. It is easy to look at surveys such as this and lament the state of the church, but Christ calls us to put our hand to the plow. Discipleship begins where we are. Pastors and teachers must labor faithfully in the ministry of the Word. Laypeople must take part in the work by mentoring, modeling godliness, and encouraging one another in the faith. God’s people are called to meditate on His Word day by day and to speak of it wherever life unfolds (Deut. 6:7). Our age is filled with distractions, yet we must keep first things first. Discipleship is not optional; it is our calling. In this calling, we follow the example of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who spent much of His earthly ministry training up disciples. Why would our work be any different?