Barna declared that “Churches that fail to persistently teach reasons why the Bible can be trusted, what moral truth is, why it must be understood as absolute rather than situational, and facilitate accountability for the application of biblical truth in our personal lives are not churches with biblical purpose and power, but merely pawns of the culture.”

A new survey reveals that most Americans reject the idea of an absolute moral truth as the prominent Christian researcher behind the report warns that the absence of this concept has wide-ranging implications for societal harmony.

The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University released the latest installment of its 2025 American Worldview Inventory on Thursday. The data in the report is based on responses collected from 2,100 adults in January. The research examined Americans’ views about whether or not there is an absolute moral truth.

When asked whether they agreed that “a mature human accepts different truth views to be just as valid as their own views,” 67% of respondents answered in the affirmative. Majorities of non-Christians (69%), those without any particular faith (68%), self-identified Christians (67%) and theologically identified born-again Christians (56%) agreed with this statement. Thirty-one percent of integrated disciples agreed with this view, making them the only group where less than half rejected the idea of an absolute moral truth.

The survey defines a theologically identified born-again Christian as someone who believes “they will go to Heaven after they die but only because they confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior,” while clarifying that the term “Integrated Disciples” refers to “adults who possess a biblical worldview, based on answers to worldview-related questions.”

Most respondents (58%) also agreed that “there can be multiple, conflicting moral truth views in any given situation without anyone being wrong.” Larger majorities of non-Christians (64%) and non-religious respondents (61%) ascribed to this view as did most self-identified Christians (56%). Less than half of theologically identified born-again Christians (47%) and a minuscule share of integrated disciples (6%) embraced this idea.

While only 45% of respondents believed that “perceptions of moral truth change over time and across cultures, proving there is no absolute moral truth,” most non-religious (55%) and non-Christian respondents (53%) believed that moral truth can change over time. Less than half of self-identified Christians (41%), theologically identified born-again Christians (28%) and integrated disciples (6%) endorsed this view.

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