I don't doubt that the results of this survey are true, but I certainly would not rely solely on this Barna group to present the facts accurately. This survey is just too self serving for them. They are in the business (spelled with capital $$'s) of helping churches attract or retain (paying) members so that these results would tend to scare churches into believing their (the Barna group's) services were needed.
Agreed.
Surveys that rely on the results of 1000 respondees to telephone interviews, and that is about all of them, are very suspect. They are far too weighted towards people who are willing, or dumb enough, to answer personal questions from a total stranger over the phone.
Refusal rates are often high, and refusal rates are often one of those pieces of data that are neglected to be mentioned.
That's why I give no credence to polls that continually show that about 10% of Americans are atheists. These polls also use phone interviews usually using automatic dialing systems and are thus limited to people who don't have the skills and intelligence to install a telezapper, i. e., they automatic exclude most atheists.
Perhaps. I'm not sure on the methodology used in this paper, however I do know that most of the people they spoke to were not Christian. According to
usatoday: "The findings were based on surveys of a sample of 867 young people. From that total, researchers reported responses from 440 non-Christians and 305 active churchgoers." - I'd certainly agree that their sample size is small - but it doesn't look like they employed the random ringing around tactic. However, it does raise other questions...such as how random was their sample, exactly? To me it looks like they asked about 20 people from each state - which doesn't seem particularly useful, but as I noted in the OP, I haven't got the materials necessary to examine potential flaws in the methodology.