unChristian Wrap-up

When you hear the name Chick-fil-A, what comes to mind?

• The greatest chicken sandwich of all time?
• Excellent customer service?
• Waffle fries & lemonade?

What about when you hear the word Christian? I would like to think you imagine:

• Loving without attached strings
• Advocating for the voiceless
• Genuine
• Compassionate
• Etc.

I just finished reading the book unChristian where it takes a humbling look at what younger generations think of Christianity. It includes none of the preceding thoughts. In fact, through extensive research, it concludes that Christianity has an image problem. Instead of giving you a book review that is a couple years too late, I will pass on some of the striking finds.
* the term outsider is used to denote someone outside of the Christian faith

In a national survey, it found the most common perceptions of present-day Christianity are antihomosexual (an image held by 91% of young outsiders aged 16-29), judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), too involved in politics (75%), out of touch with reality (72%), & old-fashioned (78%).

These statistics are compiled from thousands of people standing outside Christianity looking in. Obviously, I disagree. However, I am on the inside looking out. Their opinion greatly matters. The stats are a honest look at what they think of all Christians...what they think of me. What am I doing to help fix this image problem?

Interesting book to read if you get a second.

unChristian

A couple years ago I started reading the book, unChristian but lost interest. It's based on research by Barna Group and has several dry spurts, which regardless of the book - dry spurts put me to sleep. However, I've had a resurgence of motivation to read. I once heard David Gergen (a smart guy) explain the need to read in order to develop and boost your leadership capacity. Today, I decided to attempt to read this book in 1.5 weeks to hopefully improve my ignorance of young Americans impression of Christians. This is a quote from one such young American found in Ch.1...

"Christianity has become bloated with blind followers who would rather repeat slogans than actually feel true compassion and care. Christianity has become marketed and streamlined into a juggernaut of fearmongering that has lost its own heart."

I'll keep you updated on how it goes this week.