I seldom read blogs, However ...

[Ed Pettibone]

this guy and his readers sort of resonate with my feelings for the value of "The Barna Group", with maybe the exception of the guy touting Ed Stetzer and Lifeway Research.

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2011/08/op ... barna.html

I confess, I found him by searching for Barna critics, and know nothing about him.

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: I paid 3.95 plus shipping for for wrights book. It is supposed to be new. Too often used books are marked and I prefer to to read the authors thoughts with out another readers comments. In my opinion any one who does not know of Ed Stetzer has little if any business commenting on current affairs of Baptist. Some one may say that when I admit that I have only heard of Feldhahn. What do you know about her or where you talking about her husband with whom she works ?
And Keith when you say to me "Your point was (I believe) that Barna is either 1) wrong about the relative frequency of divorce (Christians vs. Non-Christians) or 2) just plain wrong in all his work". You are wrong on both points.

You may want to note that in my initial post in this thread I said of the “Pyromaniac blogger"
"I confess, I found him by searching for Barna critics,[/color] and know nothing about him.

And if you look you will see that the post in his blog from which you quote, is titled, An open letter to Mr. Barna, or something quite close.

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Right it should have been dialog.

[Sandy]

Interesting. Barna becomes inaccurate and unreliable simply by changing the definition of "institutional church", and surveying people who meet a different definition of "practicing Christian." I suppose, in this kind of work, if you keep changing the groups and numbers of those who are surveyed, you could find a group of Christians who never get a divorce, and will never leave an institutional church.

I think the title of the book "The Frog in the Kettle," is an apt description of American Christianity when it comes to this sort of thing.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Dave Roberts]

I have been following this as a thread. One of my impressions is that when Barna started out, he began as a very reliable user of data. I used to buy everything he put out as a way of keeping up on culture. About ten years ago, I found he seemed more and more to be looking for support for that which he had already concluded in his searches. Rather than following data, he seemed to follow what he wanted to find and picked his information and samples accordingly. It often reminds me of the quote from British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: "There are lies, damnable lies, and statistics."

[Ed Pettibone]