Below is an article featured on www.time.com. This comes from a highly anticipated book on my part, "UnChristian". You can learn more www.unchristian.com. I invite you to read and reply here. I'll post part two tomorrow...
Tuesday, Oct. 02, 2007
Christianity's Image Problem
By David Van Biema
It used to be, says David Kinnaman, that Christianity was both big and beloved in the U.S. — even among its non-adherents. Back in 1996, a poll taken by Kinnaman's organization, the Barna Group, found that 83% of Americans identified themselves as Christians, and that fewer than 20% of non-Christians held an unfavorable view of Christianity. But, as Kinnaman puts it in his new book (co-authored with Gabe Lyons) UnChristian, "That was then."
What do you think are some of the unfavorable views that non-Christians in Oklahoma City have? What can or should we do to remedy?
Barna polls conducted between 2004 and this year, sampling 440 non-Christians (and a similar number of Christians) aged 16 to 29, found that 38% had a "bad impression" of present-day Christianity. "It's not a pretty picture" the authors write. Barna's clientele is made up primarily of evangelical groups.
Kinnaman says non-Christians' biggest complaints about the faith are not immediately theological: Jesus and the Bible get relatively good marks. Rather, he sees resentment as focused on perceived Christian attitudes. Nine out of ten outsiders found Christians too "anti-homosexual," and nearly as many perceived it as "hypocritical" and "judgmental." Seventy-five percent found it "too involved in politics."
It would seem that the love the sinner, hate the sin bit has not been convincing. When it comes down to it, there are some who just plain hate the sinner. Tragic!
Not only has the decline in non-Christians' regard for Christianity been severe, but Barna results also show a rapid increase in the number of people describing themselves as non-Christian. One reason may be that the study used a stricter definition of "Christian" that applied to only 73% of Americans. Still, Kinnaman claims that however defined, the number of non-Christians is growing with each succeeding generation: His study found that 23% of Americans over 61 were non-Christians; 27% among people ages 42-60; and 40% among 16-29 year olds. Younger Christians, he concludes, are therefore likely to live in an environment where two out of every five of their peers is not a Christian.
I like the shift away from unchurched to non-Christian.
Churchgoers of the same age share several of the non-Christians' complaints about Christianity. For instance, 80% of the Christians polled picked "anti-homosexual" as a negative adjective describing Christianity today. And the view of 85% of non-Christians aged 16-29 that present day Christianity is "hypocritical — saying one thing doing another," was, in fact, shared by 52% of Christians of the same age. Fifty percent found their own faith "too involved in politics." Forty-four percent found it "confusing."
Maybe when we begin to have problems with our own religion will we begin to change and begin following Jesus.
Christians have always been aware of image problems with non-believers. Says Kinnaman: "The question is whether to care." But given the increasing non-Christian population and the fact that many of the concerns raised by non-believers are shared by young Christians, he says, there really is no option but to address the crisis.
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9 comments:
I dont recall the martyrs being concerned with their image.
I dont think christians should be rude or insensitive to seekers or non-believers, but neither do I think we should be overly concerned with our image.
What if perception is reality? Whether we like it or not, agree or not, Christians have been perceived a certain way. And it is less than Christlike in many regards.
Was Jesus perceived as anti-homosexual, hypocritical, judgemental?
And in our culture and context martyrdom is not something we are imminently facing. So, we must engage the world we now live in, extend mercy to it patiently, and walk humbly before them.
Hey David, my thoughts were not intended to be argumentative. This whole blogging thing doesn't lend itself to facial expressions and tone of voice. I'd much rather talk over coffee.
I would agree that there are exteme poles to many of these issues and ideas.
I aim to be radically inclusive and extend "scandalous grace". And I think we need to stick our heads out and listen to those outside the church-bubble.
Thanks for your continued participation and insight. I am so very hopeful the church at large in our city.
The biggest thought I come away with after reading that is "that's good news."
I feel that transformation - legitimate, effective transformation (which I am personally feel the Church needs to undergo) - whether in the individual or the community, can only be birthed by a sense of brokeness.
Basically, if you are going to heal from an illness, you must first realize, "Wow. I absolutely feel like crap."
In my humble and all-too-human opinion, I'm glad the Church feels like crap.
Oh! By the way, Ben....
A friend of mine who works as a media minister in a church in Vegas just posted something on his blog I'd love to hear your opinion on (whether here or in person.)
My friend's name is Ben (I sense a theme), and he and I both grew up in the same denomination. In fact, as teenagers, we were both in many ways being molded to be "future leaders of our denomination." Well, you know how my story has been changing in recent years, and his started changing in a very similar way, and earlier on than mine did. Anyway, that's the set-up.
He recently was given a recording of a recent lecture/seminar given by the President of our denomination's most prominent college (not the one I work at, one in Tennessee.) The place is VERY influential to our denomination (or perhaps the other way around, but I don't think so.) The topic of the lecture was the emerging church. I had no idea that the leaders of my denomination had even heard the term. Anyway, my friend posted the recording on his blog, and the approach is a very...I suppose analytical/"literal biblical" approach, if I may make up my own terminology. It's about an hour and ten minutes, so kinda long.
IF you are interested and happen to have the time at some point, here's the link:
http://bhparker.com/blog/?p=515
I'm still mulling over this man's reactions in my own mind in various ways.
Josh - I think you're right on. Brokeness and humility have been largely absent. We've been operating out of an arrogant insecurity that has perpetuated a life-cycle that needs to infact die, so that we can experience resurrection life in the church again.
What if the church died to itself, took up its cross and followed Jesus?
And I will definitely check out your buddies blog post so we can talk about it.
Peace.
Ben.
Can we do both things mentioned thus far in these comments? I've been dealing with the word "broken" lately (I'm even blogging some about it on my humble blog) - "broken" seems to allude to the idea that the broken "thing" needs to be fixed or is no longer useful. And, perhaps, the Chrisitan's image does need to be fixed. But let's stop looking so broken and start looking like joy/peace, start looking like something that is fulfilling it's intended purpose. Whole, complete. I think we (Christians) try to make ourselves "feel better" about who we are by looking down on "those sinners." But we feel bad about ourselves because we haven't figured out how to be complete in Christ. We don't end up looking any different from the rest of the world.
I certainly understand about perception being reality. But there is also only so much you can do about it.
For all the talk about how judgmental and uncaring the church is, I know many many more believers who are authentic, caring, and compassionate.
I also know so many who give of their time, talent, and treasure to help people around the world in real tangible ways and spread the gospel.
But Jerry Falwell gets all the air time. Or used to.
And those who are looking for reform in the church are constantly pointing to all the bad. There's plenty to reform, dont get me wrong.
But while there is so much wonderful being done in the name of Christ, we focus on the bad. It's the same way in the secular or christian media. New media or old media. And i dont think it will change.
So what do we do? Take time off from doing Christ's work to hire a public relations team?
Nah. I'll just keep on working til he comes.
I know what you mean though. And agree to a point. But I just think there is only so much we can do about it.
David - good thoughts.
Perhaps the Jerry Falwell types are the only "christians" that "non-christians" know. That would explain the image problem and clearly define our response.
We must engage culture at large, not perpetuate christian sub-culture. And we must live in the community at large, not just a church-community.
And the greatest thing we can do for the perception, reality and all people is LOVE!
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