How Others View Us

It's always interesting to find out how non-Christians view us (evangelicals). For many years, polls I've seen has shown that the public conception in America of evangelical Christians is very low, somewhere around prostitutes and used car salesmen. I'm not kidding - the polls have shown this consistently. We can thank the Christian Right for most of these negatives. It isn't Jesus they are rejecting as most non-Christians IMO don't understand the gospel. Why? Because we've done such a poor job of articulating it. We've been politicking instead.

David Kinnamon, President of the Barna Research Group, lists the six most common perceptions outsiders have of Christianity. They are,

1. We are hypocritical
2. We are too focused on getting converts
3. We are anti-homosexual
4. We are too sheltered
5. We are too political
6. We are too judgmental


I think this is rapidly changing within our churches, especially among younger evangelical adults. When they are polled the results are very different as to their values.

1. They hate hypocrisy and try to be authentic. Unfortuantely, what I've heard and read from them is no more authentic than their parents or grandparents were in their day. I hope they see this and REALLY becme authentic.

2. One good thing with the younger ones is their motivation for getting converts. I do think they are genuinely concerned for the whole lives of their non-Christian friends as opposed to the old days of CHristians getting a convert "scalp" for their belts.

3. The younger adults don't have that much of a problem with homosexuals, but what about homosexuality? I find their views confusing and hope in the future they will be able to nail this down a bit more, one way or the other.

4. The young adults today are definitely not sheltered.

5. The young Christian IMO will be more political with the rise of the New Christian Left. But now, I don't see a group-think on this. Some are, some aren't.

6. As for being judgmental, this is one thing that the younger Christian has a cat fit about with their elders. To counter this, The Christian Tolerance Police are all over the place in young adult churches.

And that is my take on the future of evangelicalism - a far different view than the polls show today.