Most American churchgoers would rather attend church than watch their favorite football team. But a few diehard fans are willing to miss out on worship to watch a game.

About 1 in 7 churchgoers (15 percent) say they’d skip church in order to watch their favorite football team, according to a survey of 994 churchgoers from Nashville-based LifeWay Research [infographics below].

Though some pastors blame sports for declining attendance, researchers found most of the faithful balk at skipping church for football.

More than 8 in 10 (83 percent) disagree with the statement: “I would skip a weekly worship service in order to watch my favorite football team.”

Many worshipers had particularly strong feelings—nearly 7 in 10 (68 percent) strongly disagree.

“Most churchgoers put divine revelation ahead of division rivalries,” says Scott McConnell, vice-president of LifeWay Research.

Gary Dorrien, the leading authority on American liberal theology, defines it in the first volume of his three-volume historical work:

Fundamentally it is the idea of a

genuine Christianity not based on external authority.

Liberal theology seeks to

reinterpret the symbols of Christianity in a way that creates a progressive religious alternative to atheistic rationalism and to theologies based on external authority.

Specifically, liberal theology is defined by

its openness to the verdicts of modern intellectual inquiry, especially the natural and social sciences;

its commitment to the authority of individual reason and experience;

SOMERSET, Pa. — Jimmy Hinton grew up at the feet of the wolf.

For 27 years, his father, John Wayne Hinton, proclaimed the Gospel to the sheep of the Somerset Church of Christ — a century-old congregation in this southwestern Pennsylvania coal-mining community.

“I went into ministry because of him,” said Jimmy Hinton, 35, the middle child of 11 brothers and sisters.

But three years ago, the son — who became Somerset’s preacher in 2009 — learned a horrible secret: John Hinton was a longtime child molester who had sexually abused young girls and escaped discovery for decades.

Jimmy Hinton uncovered the truth after an adult molested as a child confided in him. The Holy Spirit, he believes, drove his response.

“I believe you,” he told the victim.

He reported his father to police and prompted an investigation that resulted in the pedophile preacher, now 65, pleading guilty to sexually assaulting and taking nude photographs of four young girls, ages 4 to 7.