Aim low

Timid and flabby describes more than mainstream parenting | Joel Belz

If it's a depressing fact that American parents tend to be way too casual and lenient in setting goals for the rearing of their children, get ready for much worse news: Americans who might well be called evangelical Christians are statistically almost indistinguishable on many aspects of that same assignment.

That's according to still another poll from The Barna Group, which in recent years has repeatedly shown how little sociological difference there is between Christians and non-Christians. George Barna, who heads the research organization, has said more and more emphatically that evangelical Christians are a lot better at talking than they are at walking.

Now Mr. Barna and his number crunchers say that a whole lot of Christians aren't even bothering to talk with all that much seriousness. His recent survey focuses on what kinds of goals parents are setting for their children—not, mind you, on how well they're doing achieving those goals—but just describing the goals themselves. Even on that front, Christians come across as timid and flabby.