The study, from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, said anxiety, depression, and fear are prevalent in millions of people because of what researcher George Barna calls "worldview deficiencies” in their beliefs.
Barna, a pollster famous for studying the culture for generations, conducted the survey by interviewing 2,000 adults aged 18 and older.
“A person’s worldview,” Barna states in the CRC report, “drives every decision they make, every moment of every day.”
Citing other studies, Barna and CRC say they were concerned because one out of four adults say they struggle with some type of mental illness. Among the youngest generations, Millennials and Generation Z, one out of three struggle with a recognized mental disorder.
Christian apologist Alex McFarland has debated hostile atheists and spoken in front of tens of thousands of young people. He says there is a direct correlation between abandoning God and suffering the consequences from a worldview without a Creator and purpose.
“One’s worldview absolutely has an impact on mental health and emotional health,” he tells AFN. “Of course, emotional health and mental stability are very much overlapped.”
The Christian worldview is unique in helping people, he advises, because it recognizes there are challenges that make it impossible to enjoy a pain-free and trouble-free life.
“In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus, speaking to His disciples, tells them in the Book of John. “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Barna makes a similar conclusion in his report. People who embrace a biblical worldview will not have a “perfect” life, he observes, “but they would avoid many of the emotional and psychological pitfalls we’re seeing today.”
In a secular worldview, or an atheist worldview, McFarland says, there is no purpose in life because there is no Creator who made us, knows us, and cares about us. So our lives, logically speaking, are just an “evolutionary accident” without meaning.
“And it’s little wonder,” he concludes, “that people, especially young people, feel a sense of hopelessness, purposelessness, anxiety, very often a crippling anxiety. It’s little wonder.”
A frequent counter-argument from the atheist viewpoint is religious faith is a "crutch" for weak-minded and irrational people.
Barna’s survey, however, found that seven out of 10 people under age 40 said their life lacks purpose.
A whopping four out of five people, who reject God’s existence, reported frequent fear and anxiety.
The survey demonstrates what has happened during 50 years of post-modernism in the United States, McFarland says. So pastors, youth leaders, and Sunday School teachers should be studying and teaching Christian apologetics to today’s skeptical young people who have questions about God, Jesus Christ, and the reliability of the Bible.
“The Bible has the answers that have worked in previous generations,” he says. “They'll work in this generation as well.”
