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In July, the CT editors wrapped up several years of study and reflection on how this magazine could best handle doctrinal issues for our readers' edification. (The project was made possible by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc.)

A few weeks later, on August 1, Baker Book House published Evangelicalism: The Next Generation, an important study of the theological beliefs of evangelical college students. The authors of that book, Calvin College professors James Penning and Corwin Smidt, followed up a 1982 study by sociologist James Davison Hunter. Hunter's study, published in 1987 as Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation, was pessimistic, suggesting that the theological foundations of evangelicalism's future leaders were eroding.

Fourteen years after Hunter's study, Penning and Smidt followed up with their own. Counterintuitively, they found good news: In the intervening years, the theological beliefs of evangelical college students had not eroded as Hunter predicted they would. Indeed, on some measures (such as the existence of the devil or the origin of human beings) they were marginally more traditional. Penning and Smidt's summary of their research is available on the website of our sister magazine Books & Culture (www.ChristianityToday.com/go/smidt).

The Penning and Smidt study parallels our own research among CT readers. As we surveyed the beliefs and values of readers over 40 with those under 40, we found that in many measures, our younger readers were measurably more traditional.

For example, in the CT study, younger readers were anywhere from three to nine percentage points more traditional than the over-40s on these items:

• Adam and Eve were actual, historical people.
  
  
• Those who have never heard of Jesus in this life are lost, just as are those who heard the gospel but refused to believe.
  
  
• Those who have not believed on Jesus in this life will be eternally lost, suffering endless punishment for their sins.
  
  
• Homosexual acts are always sinful.
  
  
• Abortion is the taking of a human life and counts as murder.
  
  
• Only men should be ordained as ministers.
  
  

Our study also showed that overall our readers are committed to fundamental gospel truths. For example, 100 percent affirmed the bodily resurrection of Jesus and his full human and divine natures. A solid 97 percent affirmed that Jesus is the only way of salvation and that those God saves he "justifies by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone." The same percentage affirmed that God will bodily raise believers at Jesus' second coming.

On the one hand, it should surprise no one that CT readers believe key gospel truths strongly. On the other, some in our movement have been lamenting for the past two decades that evangelicalism's theological foundations were eroding, and a few have complained that this magazine was evidence of that decline. These few years of editorial research and reflection have convinced us that our readers have not lost their commitment to key biblical truths.

CT's interaction with our readers on doctrinal matters also included two focus groups. All focus group participants were enthusiastic about CT's publishing articles with a strong doctrinal component.

But there were differences between age groups: Younger readers have a higher tolerance for (even have a taste for) doctrinal controversy. They want to know who the players are in the debates, and they want to be told about all sides of a discussion (though they would like us to render a judgment when we are done presenting the options). Older readers prefer to keep the tensions and options in the background and have us simply teach the truth. After conducting survey research, conversing with theological advisers, and experimenting with different forms of doctrinally oriented articles, several points seem important to us:

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September 9 2002, Vol. 46, No. 10