Taken from a WayForward devotional in 2025.
Spiritual Dissonance! Not something we hear about often but it is all around us. This is what is prevailing in America today and among self-identified Christians. To help understand this concept, you must understand cognitive dissonance first. Cognitive Dissonance is the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.
Spiritual Dissonance is exactly the same but as it pertains to Christian faith. It is a conflict experienced when someone’s spiritual beliefs and actions do not align, or when their actions contradict their values.
Today, far too many American, self-identified Christians are not integrating their faith with their daily life. In 2023, a study showed that only 6% of self-identified Christians were “integrated disciples” with a Biblical worldview. This means only 6% of Christians possessed a biblical worldview based on scores related to beliefs and behavior. Today that number is down to 4% which means 96% of all Christians in America do not live out a Biblical lifestyle based on their beliefs. Their actions do not align with their Christian beliefs, and that is spiritual dissonance. Dr. George Barna, Director of Research at the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University says it best:
“Facilitating a return to biblical thinking and living in America will take an intentional, strategic, and consistent effort by the remaining population that represents this biblical approach to life.”
At WayForward, we exist to champion biblical thinking and living in multi-housing communities. People do not develop a biblical worldview randomly or by default. Biblical thinking and living, belief and behavior, must be consciously, diligently, and deliberately cultivated. Every week, WayForward Resident Support Teams are leading the way to spearhead this change.
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