Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephanas
Statistics must be about the most malleable thing known to man, especially when used by partisan Pentecostals.
The AoG reported 450,340 "conversions" in 2006. That is a relatively meaningless number that undoubtedly includes everybody that said a prayer, attended a drama, or drove by a church on a hot Sunday when the church windows were propped open. (They are first cousins to Oneness Pentecostals)
Water baptisms more honestly reflect the number of "new believers." In 2006 the AoG reported 114,972 water baptisms.
In the same year (2006) the AoG reported 91,893 Spirit Baptisms.
That's more like 80% of new believers receiving the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.
I wonder what the "conversions"/Spirit Baptisms ratio is for Oneness Churches?
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My goodness. What a horrific twisting of numbers.
You're right about statistics being "malleable". You just proved it by your ridicoulous distorting of the numbers to supposedly show that 80% of AG converts get filled with the Holy Ghost. It's funny how you talked about numbers being malleable in the hands of "partisan Pentecostals" , then went on to sound quite partisan yourself.
So according to your figuring, no-one should be considered "converted" in AG churches unless they're baptized... And of those, you say 80% of those were filled with the Holy Ghost, so therefore they have an 80% rate of Holy Ghost infilling? Are you serious?
The key to this here is that YOU have decided what a "convert" is in an AG church. How about letting them speak for themselves, instead of you trying to "work the numbers" (
their numbers) to prove a point? Dont distort their numbers for them. If anyone is going to distort the numbers, how about letting them do it themselves? I'd rather let them speak for themselves, and I'll go with their definition of what a new convert is, not your obviously self-serving definition. Lets me be real here: It's a documented fact that
the AoG counts as converts those who make "decisions for Christ", ( those who accept 'Jesus as their savior', etc)... it's NOT simply
"everybody that said a prayer, attended a drama, or drove by a church on a hot Sunday when the church windows were propped open" , as you put it .
That strikes me as either wishful thinking on your part, or just straight-up intellectual dishonesty. You eliminate about
335,000 of the AG "converts" from your numbers, to make it seem like they're not really converts at all? You cut down the original number (THE AG's OWN NUMBER) of converts by about 74%...
and then you work downward from there? Who are you kidding?
And then you finish off your post by questioning how Onenes churches compare in this regard to the AG? .....as if to imply that the AG's numbers are comparable or better than Oneness churches in general? Please.
Take off the rose colored glasses buddy. If 80% of the AG 'converts' were getting filled with the Holy Ghost, they denomination wouldnt have expressed alarm at the low percentage of Holy Ghost infilling. If it was as you're implying, their own Assistant General Secretary Michael Crabtree would not have said
"If we continue this trend, in 10 years we will have a very small percentage of Pentecostals in the Assemblies of God." http://rss.ag.org/articles/detail.cf..._Source=search
The Assemblies of God's own own report is
HERE, if you want to take a look . You'll notice they use phrases like "an alarming trend", "another alarming statistic", "broad serious issues", etc. Their own report and their own assesment of the situation doesn't paint the rosy picture you're trying to create.
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