Someone remarked recently how much they are going to miss newspapers, referring to their imminent demise. Further discussion revealed that while some adults – typically 40 or older – harbor a sense of nostalgia and pending loss over such a demise, younger adults are rather indifferent to the disappearance of newspapers.

My take on it may be a bit different than that of my colleagues. I haven’t subscriber to a “hard copy” newspaper in more than 20 years, but I do review the headlines (and read the appealing stories) of 7 newspapers every morning via RSS feeds. If those publications were to vanish, it’d certainly be a loss for me, though perhaps not insurmountable – emphasis on “perhaps” for a reason I’ll explain.

What concerns me the most, though, is that our society seems to be headed toward greater reliance on the Internet for news from sources that are disconnected to any kind of vetting entity. I trust the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other newspapers because I know they have a process of fact checking. They still get many things wrong, and the ideological bias each builds into their stories is undeniable, but at least I know it’s there and what slant to look for. If those publications die and instead I have to rely upon an endless series of untethered, unaccountable individuals and small organizations to provide current news, the chance of getting reliable reporting is greatly diminished.

In a world where almost everyone is a publisher and accuracy takes a back seat to immediacy, number of eyeballs attracted, independence, and personal expression, it will be hard to know what to believe. This has been driven home to me lately by the avalanche of misinformation about me – the only source of information whose veracity I can affirm without question – that I have come across in just the past few weeks. Here are a few examples.

“According to George Barna and his group of pollsters: 86% of Americans claim to be born again…”

Whoa, I would never even report that 86% of people in churches on Sunday are born again!

“Barna predicts that within 20 years, this House Churching group – one that he refers to as “Revolutionaries” – will comprise nearly 70% of U.S. Christians, leaving only 30-35 percent (primarily, aging Christians) in traditional church settings.”

Yikes! I have never provided any prediction about the percentage of people who will be in house churches at any given time in the future. Further, “revolutionaries” refers to a person’s commitment to their faith, not the type of faith community to which they belong. I think I know the data this reporter was drawing from, but he radically sliced and diced it in inappropriate ways and put words in my mouth that I would never say – and that nobody I know of can reasonally support.

“I just heard a George Barna stat about this recently less than 2% of the churches will hear their pastor preach a message on the Holy Spirit this year. Its alarming.”

It sure is alarming – although I’m not sure if it’s more alarming that this bogus statistic is attributed to me, or that this idea might have some basis in reality.

“According to a study done by the Barna Group, when a Chinese House Church pastor or leader is arrested or killed, the house church may disband, but out of it will form 5 other House Churches.”

It’s not bad enough that so much bogus research is attributed to me in the U.S. – now we have the digitali claiming that I have conducted research in China! I have visited China once in my life (last year) and I conducted no surveys while there.

George Barna taught for years at C. Peter Wagner’s Wagner Leadership Institute, and his writing appears in “Evangelism and Church Growth: Reference Library” published by Regal books, with contributions from the following notable authors: Elmer L. Towns, George Barna, C. Peter Wagner, Ted Haggard, Ed Silvoso, Jack W. Hayford, and Larry Stockstill. There’s no doubt in my mind that Barna is involved in a re-marketing effort which seeks to put a friendlier gloss on neo-evangelicalism, because its historically anti-gay virulence turns off many millennials.

I taught at the Wagner Institute for years? Man, I’d better request some back pay! In actuality, I taught a course there once, about 15 years ago, and I think it last two or three days; it may only have seemed like years to those who had to take my class. (Note: I was never invited back.) And the notion that I am involved in a “re-marketing effort to put a friendlier gloss on neo-evangelicalism” – well, let’s just say nobody has ever accused me of putting a friendly face on anything! It is quite an acrobatic leap, however, to go from noting that one of my books was included on a CD-ROM more than a decade ago to assuming that by writing about research on evangelism 15 years ago I must now be engaged in the re-marketing of “neo-evangelicalsim,” whatever that is.

George Barna, founder of The Barna Group, a research firm that specializes in studying the religious beliefs and behavior of Americans, calls Alpha an “anointed program in God’s appointed time.” According to Barna, Alpha is for anyone who thinks there may be more to life than meets the eye. People attend from all backgrounds, religions and viewpoints, investigating questions about the existence of God, the purpose of life, the afterlife and the claims of Jesus. Some want to get beyond religion and find a relationship with God that changes their lives, others come for the close, long-lasting friendships that are built during the Alpha courses, he said. Barna said the Alpha Course is being presented in 130 countries, with 6,000 courses in the U.S. and 25, 000 worldwide.

Well, I was very pleased to read this about myself because prior to the release of that article I knew very little about the Alpha program. I was surprised to have endorsed a program about which I knew next-to-nothing; to boldly cite statistics about that same unknown program; and to add a marketing pitch to boot. I guess I am simply more clever than I realized.

We also suspect that Focus may be feeling the pull of George Barna’s polling research denigrating “religious right” activism…

I did research that denigrates “religious right activism”? That’s news to me. I recall doing research that encourages Christians to get more serious about their faith, but beyond that, this is another of those “you stumped me” claims.

Our Lord Jesus preached until He was left with only the twelve, and He had no qualms about that. He is Sovereign, even if the devil and George Barna would try to use statistics to prove to us otherwise.

Now hold on a minute. Granted, I have had some pretty bad business partners in a few companies I started outside of The Barna Group. And sure, there were days when I thought one or more of my business partners were Satan. But in all fairness, I have never partnered with the devil to use statistics questioning the sovereignty of God – if for no other reason than the recognition that the last person you want to tick off is the One who is sovereign.

These are just a few of the errant claims about my work that others have made on the Internet in the past two weeks. I shudder every time I try to imagine how many bogus research claims and ignorant analyses of my work have been made on the Web. If people butcher my work this way, what would an information universe without news groups tethered to a semblance of truth be like?

Bad information presented in the media is nothing new. That’s as old as media itself. But as the last unregulated frontier of influence, the Internet is both a blessing and a curse. I am praying that somehow we will figure out ways of identifying the good from the bad that appears on the Internet – and that we do so sooner rather than later. I fear that I won’t miss the smudgy print of newspapers, but I will miss news groups that have a tradition of making a good faith effort to report facts accurately and with some degree of integrity.