Does Americans' faith run only skin-deep?

You may well wonder---as I often do---how we have reached such a low point in our culture. Divorce rates soar. Abortion is not only condoned by society, it's common. Fewer and fewer children grow up living in the same household with both their mother and father. Marriage dwindles in importance and is at risk of losing its meaning altogether.

The answer I come back to time and again is that as a society we have turned away from God. This is hardly an original thought. Many have decried for years the fact that God is being slowly (or maybe not so slowly) but surely driven from the public square.

We blame the secularists and the cultural elite, the mainstream media and the ACLU. But maybe we have only ourselves to blame.

In a newly released poll from the Barna Group, only 12 percent of those surveyed said faith was their top priority. This despite the fact that, as the Barna press release points out, more than 75 percent of American adults identify themselves as Christians. David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, commented on the numbers: "The gap is vast between self-described affiliation with Christianity and ascribing highest priority to that faith. When it comes to why so much of American religion seems merely skin-deep, this gap between what people call themselves and what they prioritize is perhaps most telling."

The group that ranks faith highest is evangelicals, with two out of five (39 percent) saying it is their highest priority.

If there is any good news to be had from the survey, it is that Americans care about family issues, specifically "having a good family life, being a good parent, and having a good marriage." Whether those should rank highest on the priority scale is another matter.