Sara Robinson – October 10, 2007:
A study released last week by the Barna Group, a reputable Evangelical research and polling firm, found that under-30s — both Christian and non-Christian — are strikingly more critical of Christianity than their peers were just a decade ago. According to the summary report, Barna pollster David Kinnaman found that the opinions of non-Christians, in particular, had slid like a rock in that time frame. Ten years ago, “the vast majority” of non-Christians had generally favorable views of Christianity. Now, that number stands at just 16%. When asked specifically about Evangelicals, the number are even worse: only 3% of non-Christian Millennials have positive associations with Evangelicals. Among the Boomers, it’s eight times higher.
When Kinnaman asked senior pastors if they were seeing this too, half of them told him that, yes, they are finding their work to be an uphill battle — “because people are increasingly hostile and negative toward Christianity.” And his research bore this out. When he ranked young non-Christians’ most common perceptions of Christianity, nine of the 12 most common attributes they named were negative ones. According to the study, “Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%).”
Overall, the new Barna study seems to offer some hopeful prospects for a more generally liberal and diverse America in the decades ahead. Evangelical Christianity won’t go away — but there’s a shift in its essential character afoot, which may even reverse the trend toward minority status over time. And it seem likely that big changes are coming that will not only make it more progressive in its view of its own mission; but will also make it a much better friend to democracy than it’s been in recent years.
Angel,
Thanks for the complement (I think that’s what it was!)
A main reason liberal Christianity gets missed is because neither liberals nor Christians are particularly appreciative of us.
Just listen to the many liberals here who are so judgmental of Christians; they’re as intolerant as the worst of the Fundamentalists!
The stereotype of Christians as all being anti-science, right wing nut cases is propagated by BOTH the conservative Christians and by the anti-religious bigots, too.
Yet, many of the most famous liberals of our time are fairly devout Christians, including Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, John Edwards, Jessie Jackson, Hillary Clinton, etc. etc.
Religion is simply for the weak minded who can’t think for themselves and need someone or something to tell them what to do.
Barna Group, a reputable Evangelical research and polling firm – Thats a funny one! They make money making wild statements all the time. A better statement might be Barna Group the media’s best friend for making headlines. Do a search of the Barna’s previous work, funny stuff.
#19
I am a non-believer/athiest raised in a conservative christian household. I’ve seen my Uncle get ‘turned’ from being gay by our family and have been told by my Grandma that monks in Tibet who have never been in contact with Christian philosophy nor religion will go to hell regards that they never had a chance to accept Jesus in their life – all important to Christians. Argggh.
I agree with many of the posts here and can reason with some of what you said, Greg Allen, but
‘I firmly believe that the root reason for the rise of modern terrorism is the rise of conservatism , not Islam.’
Please! I can’t go with that.
They hit us before we ever hit them much less even knew they were there. No one even knew anything about Muslims till 9-11 and don’t tell me that’s not true. The majority of people couldn’t have even told you what relevence Allah or Muhamed had to Islam before 2001. The Radical Islamic Groups don’t care who is in power here and on top of that Christians were not Liberal or conservative even 5 years ago. The Religious Right movement manifested itself from the whole Radical Islam movement as backlash for what happened. I am a converted liberal from conservative because of the whole religious right. The conservative right has gone down hill since religion got involved with no doubt, but let’s not blame them for terrorism.
I will bring up this point – You here constantly that our founding fathers were Christians and our constituition was based off the ten comandments. Both untrue. There are only two commandments in our laws today – shall not steal nor kill and the first 19 presidents were not Christian, but were Deists – Deism is a religious philosophy and movement that derives the existence and nature of God from reason and personal experience, in contrast to theism (with religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam) which relies on revelation in sacred scriptures or the testimony of other people.
The God they reference is not the God of the ‘Good Book’ at all, but a God who they thought created us and could care less what happens to us afterward much less give us visions and help us write a manual to live by. They left the old world to escape religion – why would they want to create another country based on religion if that was the case.
Even Abe Lincoln who read the Bible daily was not Christian, he did however subscribe to the Christian Philosphy.
Thomas Jefferson owned and carried a bible, too, but he cut out every example of a ‘miracle’ from the text – hence the beginings of the Christian Philosphical movement that really never got started.
Love, Peace, and Happiness!