SDA survey: "majority of global church members did not have a clear understanding of the Trinity as consisting of three distinct Persons"
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This data is from the 2022-2023 Global Church Member Survey Concerning the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
The meta-analysis discussion regarding views of the Trinity in the Seventh-day Adventist Church:
https://www.adventistresearch.info/...FINAL-February-2024-Cover-Page-Adjustment.pdf
Some quotes about the data:
And
The meta-analysis discussion regarding views of the Trinity in the Seventh-day Adventist Church:
https://www.adventistresearch.info/...FINAL-February-2024-Cover-Page-Adjustment.pdf
1. A large majority (81%) of the weighted global sample wholeheartedly embraced belief in the Trinity (one God, a unity of three eternal equal persons; item B6.1). Another 13% accepted this belief because the church teaches it (total of 94%). Only 1% had major doubts or rejected this belief and only 3% reported having questions. The suggests that Seventh-day Adventists hold Trinitarian beliefs. Acceptance of this belief was essentially the same in Wave II (95%).
2. More than 85% of respondents in each of the regions accept the belief in the Trinity wholeheartedly or because the Adventist Church teaches it. Only three Divisions; (South Pacific (73%), Southern Asia-Pacific, (73%) and Southern Asia (60%), had fewer than three-quarters of respondents wholeheartedly accept this belief.
3. However, several clusters of Divisions had a substantial proportion of respondents report that they did not believe that the Holy Spirit was a Person (but is instead God’s power in the world)—a view that contradicts acceptance of belief in the Trinity (item B1.31). Most respondents agreed that the Holy Spirit is God’s power, not a Person in the West-Central Africa (76%), East-Central Africa (71%), Southern Africa-Indian Ocean and South Pacific (65% each) Divisions. The majority of respondents also agreed with this statement in the Southern Asia (63%), and Southern Asia-Pacific (59%) Divisions. Over 40% of respondents agreed with this statement in the North American (41%), Inter-American (43%), and South American (46%) Divisions. In the remaining regions, fewer than one-third of the respondents agreed with the statement, with fewer than 10% agreeing in the Euro-Asia Division (7%) and Ukrainian Union Conference (8%).
4. As a result of these regional patterns, a majority (57%) of the weighted global sample agreed (23%) or strongly agreed (34%) that the Holy Spirit is not a Person but represents God’s power in the world (item B1. 1). This item was not included in Wave II.
5. These data suggest that the majority of global church members did not have a clear understanding of the Trinity as consisting of three distinct Persons
The total study looked at a data set containing 149,556 cases.Some quotes about the data:
When comparing the percentages in this report, it will be useful to have a sense of the margin of error in most of these analyses. Even when setting the confidence level at a very conservative 99% (most opinion polling sets the confidence level at 95%), the large sample sizes in this report yield relatively small margins of error. For overall sample numbers, a sample size of 125,000 (most variables have a larger sample size than this for the global percentages) will lead to margins of error between about ±0.1% and ±0.4%.
And
Thus, a very conservative heuristic for the 99% confidence margin of error on any percentage in the report is ±0.4% on global percentages, ±3% on percentages for most regions, and ±2% on differences in percentages. Most percentages and percentage differences reported in the meta-analysis will have margins of error that are less than these conservative heuristics.