A recent poll reveals that only less than a quarter of all Americans can actually retell the story of Christmas from the Bible.
The Christian Headlines reported that a recent Lifeway Research survey revealed that only 22% of Americans can give an accurate account of the story of Christmas. The survey, entitled "American Views On Christmas," was conducted online on September 3-14 on 1,005 Americans.
According to the research paper, Lifeway's survey does not exceed a margin of error 3.3% and that quotas and slight weights were used to derive a more accurate reflection of the population since there were variances in the age, ethnicity, gender, education, religion, and region of the respondents.
Respondents' ages ranged from 18 to 65 years involving both genders and a mixture of ethnicities and educational backgrounds. Respondents were asked, "How much of the Christmas story found in the Bible could you tell from memory?"
Lifeway highlighted in the research that "53% say they could tell the Christmas story, with 31% saying they may not get all the details correct." While 25% said they "could only give a quick overview," 17% "couldn't tell any of it," and 5% preferred "not to answer." This is despite the fact that a majority of the respondents, 9 out of 10 or 91%, "say they celebrate Christmas."
The study showed that 29% of African Americans can tell the story of Christmas more accurately than 18% of Hispanics. While 38% of those aged 65 and above are the ones who said they could tell the Christmas story but not fully as "some details might be missing or wrong as compared to 28% of those aged 35-49 years.
In terms of educational attainment, 26% of those with a Bachelor's Degree and 35% of those with a Graduate Degree attest they could tell the Christmas story more accurately as against to 18% of High School Graduates and 19% of those with some college.
Christians who attend more than four times in a month in church for worship service are 45% more likely to accurately tell the Christmas story than the 24% of those who attend church only once or thrice in a month.
Respondents who had evangelical beliefs (46%) stated they can accurately tell the Christmas story while only 15% of those who don't have evangelical beliefs said they could do so. Similarly, 10% of those who have no religious affiliation can tell the Christmas story accurately.
Meanwhile, women are more likely to celebrate Christmas over men at 94% as against 89%. Celebrating Christmas is a big "no" for other ethnicities at 23%, the religiously unaffiliated at 82%, other religions at 74%, and those with no evangelical beliefs at 90%.
It is a "yes" for 94% of High School Graduates, 89% for Graduate Degree Holders, and 88% for those with some college. Similarly, 99% of Catholics and 97% of Protestants celebrate Christmas along with 95% of those with evangelical beliefs.
Lifeway Research defined evangelical beliefs as having a strong agreement on the Bible being the "highest authority" for one's beliefs, in encouraging non-Christians to "trust Jesus Christ as their Savior," in sins being removed solely by Christ's death on the cross, and in one's salvation being received by trusting in "Jesus Christ alone as their Savior."
