*"I really don't see much connection between what happens in my business and what happens in our church on Sunday morning."

*"Everybody in our family is very busy. It's all we can do to get a little family time, let alone do extra things for the church."

*"With all the other people who don't care, it's hard to keep giving...it's hard to stay motivated."

Those were just three of the more than 450 comments gathered in a recent survey. Along with a Nazarene pastor, I collected written responses from a cross-section of our communities, both saved and unsaved. We used a method developed by Robert Flannigan of the aerospace industry. His approach, called the "Critical Incident Technique" is designed to assemble a solid sample of responses to a given question and then look for common themes which run through the written paragraphs.

We asked three questions: (1) Do you believe the Bible has lost any of its influence over culture in the last twenty years? (2) What has happened to the relationship between the church and society over the past twenty years? (3) To what do you attribute any changes you see in the influence of the Bible and/or the church in society? By sorting and sifting through the responses, we picked up clues for answering the question raised by the title.

1. Automatic Authority Has Given Way to Earned Authority.

"Our church tries to meet the needs of the whole family. It's especially good for our children."

"Our pastor came to the hospital when my father was so sick. I really appreciated that."

One of the clearest signals from the study suggests that the days of a pastor, Bible in hand, possessing authority because of his office are all but extinct. His authority (and by association, the influence of the church) is earned by being there for the people when they need them. Instead of the biblical agenda being assumed, the church today must land first on the island of people's real-life experiences before they will even consider giving the Bible a chance.

Deep down I wish the data hadn't said that, but the hard reality of our time is that for the majority of people in our society, the Bible, per se, has lost its grip. Jay Kesler of "Family Forum" has said, "For the first time in our history, we now live in a culture in which more than 50% of students in our public schools have neither a parent nor a grandparent who holds to the Christian faith."

When you couple that sad social shift with Gordon Kaufmann's frightening commentary on the Bible's reduced role in society, the handwriting is on the wall. "The Bible no longer has unique authority for western man. It has become a great but archaic monument in our midst. It is a reminder of where we once were, but no longer are. It contains glorious literature, important historical documents, exalted ethical teachings, but for most people today it is no longer the word of God." [Francis Fiorenza, "The Crisis of Scriptural Authority," Interpretation (October 1990):353-354]

2. Lines of Loyalty to Groups and Organizations Have Been Pulled in to a Smaller Circumference.