In my “day job” I have worked with data and statistical information. Because of this, I have extensive experience with data as a way to tell a story. I also have the experience to recognize when someone is using data to tell a false or misleading story to prove a point. The latter is sometimes unintentional, but it is still problematic. Our trust in sources should be based upon verification and the speaking of truth when those sources are false.
There is a tendency to trust data shared by the sources we trust. However, those sources know this and know that many people do not have the experience will not be able to see their BS. I have encountered the way data shared gets believed and shared as truth. I was even told by a fellow member of clergy one time over and over that they trusted the source more than my experience. I get it, but the huge problem in that case was that the source was not what ot appeared to be. You see Arizona Christian University (ACU: a fundamentalist Christian school) hired Barna as a professor. So, they use the name Barna to give credence to their claims. Barna is no longer associated with the Barna Group as he is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a political activist and lobbying group. George Barna sold Barna Group in 2009. ACU used Barna’s name in prepared stories propagated across various outlets a few years ago to make a claim about Christian worldview. The stories were eventually edited to read George Barna from simply Barna. But the false information had already been shared by many.
This brings us to another story being shared using supposed data points. Once again, the data as presented does not back up the claim. Fox News had a story about Christian Revival in the U.S. As proof us this, they shared some data about consumer habits. They claimed that data told a story of revival, but there are problems with that claim both from the surface and the underlying data. The surface claim is problematic because consumer behavior is not evidence of revival nor is it evidence of changed hearts. It is evidence of changing consumer habits, but not hearts.
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