Almost half of Americans believe the coronavirus pandemic is a “wake-up call” from God, according to a new national survey.
The poll, which was commissioned by the Joshua Fund, an Israel-based evangelical organisation, asked “likely” American voters a series of questions including: “Do you see the global coronavirus pandemic and economic meltdown” as “signs of coming judgement” and/or “a wake-up call for us to turn back to faith in God?”
According to the results of the survey, over 43% of respondents believe the virus is either a wake-up call from God and/or a sign of coming judgment. More than 25% of self-identified non-Christian respondents agreed, along with:
- 42% of Jewish Americans
- 39.3% of single people (compared to 49% of married people)
- 54% of military household
- 51.7% of Hispanic-Americans
- 63.6% of African-Americans
- 40.3% of whites
- 26.3% of Asian-Americans
- 41.8% of young people, age 18–29
- 46.6% of people age 30–40
- 42.8% of people age 41–55
- 50.9% of people age 56–65
- 39.6% of people over 65
Almost 22% of all non-Christians responding to the poll admitted that the crisis has caused them to start reading the Bible and listening to Bible teaching and sermons online. While more than 29% of the respondents also believe the crisis reveals that “we are living in what the Bible calls the last days.”
Joel C. Rosenberg, the founder of the Joshua Fund and bestselling author, told The Washington Examiner, “Americans in near full lockdown are anxious, an understandably so. Yet millions are turning to God, the Bible, and Christian sermons for answers, some of them for the first time. That may be the most important silver lining in this crisis so far.”
The survey was conducted between March 23 and 26 by the nationally recognised McLaughlin & Associates and was part of a larger national poll of 1,000 Americans with a diversity of religious beliefs. The poll had reported a margin of error of +/- 3.1% at a 95% confidence interval.
The Pew Research Center released similar findings after surveying 11,537 Americans between March 19 and 24. According to their report, “more than half of all U.S. adults (55%) say they have prayed for an end to the spread of coronavirus.”
“Large majorities of Americans who pray daily (86%) and of U.S. Christians (73%) have taken to prayer during the outbreak — but so have some who say they seldom or never pray and people who say they do not belong to any religion (15% and 24%, respectively),” Pew Research reported.