Christians: armchair critics or positive change-makers?
By Matthew Vaughan
In 2007 a study by the Barna Group, an organisation which describes itself as a “research organization focused on the intersection of faith and culture”, published a report into public perceptions of Christianity in the USA1. The findings of the report are striking. Among the most salient points were:
16% of people said that they had a favourable impression of Christianity.
3% of people had a favourable impression of evangelical Christians.
87% of respondents viewed Christianity as judgemental.
85% viewed Christianity as hypocritical.
78% viewed Christianity as old fashioned.
91% thought that Christianity was anti-homosexual.
These statistics are remarkable in themselves, but what makes them even more striking is the fact that most of the respondents had had substantial contact with Christianity;
Respondents had an average of five Christian friends each.
80% of respondents had spent significant amounts of time (an average of 6 months) attending church in the past.
50% of respondents had considered embracing Christianity at some point but had decided not to.
It’s tempting, perhaps even instinctive, to cast around for excuses when faced with a barrage of such lacerating criticism. Perhaps the survey was too narrow in scope and isn’t representative enough? Perhaps these responses are aimed at specific denominations, or particular churches? Maybe they’re just angry because US evangelicals are generally more extreme than evangelicals elsewhere? It may even be that this criticism was sparked by high-profile incidences of publicly proven hypocrisy, such as the downfall of Ted Haggard, or by a latent antagonism towards the self-proclaimed Christian policies of George Bush and the consequences these have had for the world as a whole.
Yet such explanations are limp, misguided, and a total waste of time, for the simple reason that the criticisms aimed at Christians in this report, as well as those targeted at Christians elsewhere in the world, are absolutely justified. There’s no point trying to explain them away because, quite frankly, they are right.
Is this really so surprising? We Christians, and more specifically we evangelicals (note the particular criticism aimed at us in the 3% statistic above) are viewed as hypocritical, judgemental and old fashioned because we are, or at least because that is the image many of us choose to portray. It is my belief that the salient characteristics of many evangelical Christians in this country, and elsewhere in the world, have been negative ones, because these are the very characteristics we have chosen for ourselves. It is not in the least surprising that our non-Christian friends are criticising us for it.
In some of the churches I have attended over the past few years (and, being something of a nomad, there have been a few) I have got the distinct impression that many Christians only bother to stir themselves and make their voices heard when there is something to be angry about. It is as if we have a clipboard with a list of all of the issues of the day and we take pride in putting a tick against all of the issues with which we have a problem. We don’t like homosexuality (or, more pertinently, homosexuals). We don’t like the proposed legislation over the sexual orientation bill. We don’t like evolution, or evolutionary scientists, and certainly not Richard Dawkins. We don’t like Muslims in our country, and we don’t like the Mega-Mosque2, and we really don’t like church buildings being turned into mosques. We don’t like it when our employers ban us from wearing a cross to work3. We don’t like it when an artist creates a statue of Jesus with an erection4. We don’t like political correctness. We don’t like casinos. We don’t like strip clubs. We don’t like The Da Vinci Code. And don’t even get us started on Jerry Springer: The Opera5.
My point is not that these topics are irrelevant. Many of them are highly relevant to us and raise challenging questions about the society in which we live (although I confess I have not lost sleep over someone making a statue of Jesus with an erection). My point is that far too often our response to all of these issues is almost entirely negative. Far too often we lament, and criticise, and wave our placards, and wail to the heavens, and beat our breasts as we bemoan “our broken world”. We pray to God to turn back the tide of Islam that is engulfing our country, failing to recognise that God is sovereign, that nothing happens in this world without his permission, and that the presence of Muslims in this country could actually bring positive effects, waking complacent Christians from their lazy slumber and putting the unique and incomparable beauty of Christ into a fresh new light. We don’t offer constructive criticism or positive solutions to social ills such as casinos or broken marriages or rampant, unrestricted sexuality or any of the other characteristics of the “broken Britain” we love to bewail. We don’t stop to think what the underlying reasons might be for lap-dance clubs opening in our towns, or what the root causes are for the perceived increase in cases of euthanasia, or whether Britain really is, or ever was, a Christian country that ought to be defended. All we are able to do, it seems, is huddle in our church buildings and gesticulate wildly while the world outside our iron-bound 17th century doors goes to hell in a handcart.
But is this really a fair portrayal of all evangelicals, or even of all Christians? No, I don’t think so. Evidence of positive Christian involvement in social issues is pretty easy to find if you bother to look for it. Whether it is Christians advocating the use of Fair Trade products, Christians lobbying for the end of human trafficking around the world, Christians building relationships with other faith groups in their area in order to reduce fear and racial resentment, Christians using their skills in foreign countries in order to help those less fortunate than they6, the vehement opposition made by Rowan Williams to the Iraq War and to a potential attack on Iran or Syria, or the strong involvement of many Christian clergy in social issues7, it is quite clear that many Christians seek to engage in the world in a positive way in many challenging situations. It’s simply incorrect to portray all Christians as hand-wringing whingers with nothing positive to offer.
It’s also worth mentioning the role played by the media. When we consider this subject we have to try to separate the reality of the situation from the media’s portrayal of it, because it is inevitable that journalists will focus on the more attention-grabbing aspects of any story. A story about loving, gentle Christians meeting for prayer is not going to rival Strictly Come Dancing in the battle for ratings. A story about Christian activists handing out anti-homosexual pamphlets at a gay pride rally, or ranting about Islam8, on the other hand? Pass the popcorn! The modern media, with its emphasis on soundbites, hype, and drama, can scarcely be relied on to give a thorough, reasoned analysis when it is called for. When this instinct for sensationalism is combined with a whiff of Christian scandal – the downfall of Ted Haggard, for example, which combined sex, prostitution and hypocrisy, all tasty ingredients for a tabloid feeding frenzy – the resulting story will inevitably make all Christians look bad. This is unfair, but what do we expect? There’s no room for subtle shades of grey in the Manichaean world of the modern media. John Stott is a wonderful Christian, but he’d make a lousy contestant on Big Brother.
Nevertheless, even when the polarising influence of the media is taken into consideration, and the inevitable focus placed upon the more sensationalistic failings of Christianity is recognised, it is still undeniable that something is rotten. You don’t reach a situation in which 97% of respondents state that they have an unfavourable impression of you without something having gone wrong somewhere along the line.
Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised that followers of Christ are viewed unfavourably in this world. We follow a man who spent three years getting firmly up the noses of almost every authority figure he met, who stated that he came “not to bring peace but a sword, and to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother…”9 and who ended up being put to death as a common criminal. A man, furthermore, who said “blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and when they revile you”10 and “I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you”11. Such unpopularity is a natural reaction of a world broken by its own inherent sinfulness and the pervasive, tireless influence of Satan to a people who are meant to stand for goodness, justice, love, and sacrifice. Under these circumstances it’s certainly not surprising that people dislike Christians, but we might well ask ourselves if we’re being disliked for the right reasons. Are we disliked because we are faithfully standing for justice and peace and being selflessly, sacrificially loving towards everyone we meet, or because we choose to define ourselves with negatives, turning the loving, positive voice of Jesus into the sour, negative whining of nitpicking and discontent? The second biggest worry I have is that too many of us have opted to serve the Lord as armchair critics rather than positive change-makers, and my biggest worry is that I know I have.
I believe that the challenge facing us is how to respond in a manner which is true to the model of Jesus. Do we give in to the criticism and back out of public life? Do we turn to the verses in which Jesus prophesied that his followers would suffer and say “he suffered, he said we would suffer, so if we’re suffering it’s perfectly okay”? Or do we take a long, honest look at the way we’ve presented Jesus to the world around us and wonder if some of us might have missed the point a little? When reading through the gospels it becomes abundantly clear that Jesus was immensely popular with most of the people he met. Why else would career fishermen drop the tools of their trade and follow this guy without a second thought? Why did Zacchaeus have to climb a tree just to get a look at him? Why did endless crowds follow this guy around Palestine? Didn’t they have jobs to do, families to feed, lives to live? Of course they did, but they followed him because Jesus was so utterly magnetic, so totally bizarre and beautiful and wonderful, so freakishly, ridiculously marvellous in every way that people just couldn’t help themselves. The son of God was such a magnificent, astonishing phenomenon that a cripple’s friends had to hack through the roof of a house just to get close to him. He was unpopular with the religious authorities whose limited, legalistic minds weren’t big enough to understand how he could be God, and he was executed by the Romans who were worried about a riot breaking out, but he was a hit of Beatles proportions with the masses. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if our churches were so crammed with the love of Jesus that people had to hack through our lead-lined roofs just to get a piece of the action?
I hope I haven’t sounded overly critical of Christian lobbyists or of passionate Christians who are worried by the flood of negativity being directed at us. This is an odd time in history and it’s hard for us to adapt when 1,300 years of established Christianity are washed away in half a lifetime. Perhaps the aggressive response by many evangelicals is just one of the growing pains as we come to terms with the new context in which we find ourselves. We certainly do need to respond, not by ranting about the sinfulness of the world, nor by providing the world with a list of things we don’t like about it, and certainly not by setting ourselves against the negative opinions of our fellow Christians, but instead by revisiting the example of Jesus and offering that to the world. I suggest that we take a fresh look at ourselves, a fresh look at Christ, and wonder how we might make the former look a bit more like the latter. Then, if we’re still being hated, at least it might be for the right reasons.
Footnotes
1 A copy is available at
http://seegers.lccharities.org/WAU-AJC/News/A%20New%20Generation-%20Barna%20Research.pdf
2http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/mosque.html
3 See
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/feb/25/religion-christianity-orissa-persecution for a masterful analysis of this situation.
5 See http://www.christianlegalcentre.com/view.php?id=256, for example, or http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/springer.html if you have a particularly strong stomach.
6 Gayle Williams is one example of the altruistic sacrifices made by many in the cause of mission.
7 Examples abound, but it’s worth remembering John Sentamu’s charity skydive, his criticism of Robert Mugabe, his campaigning for the release of BBC reporter Alan Johnstone, and many other similar examples stand out.
8 Both of these examples are taken from the Dispatches documentary “In God’s Name”, a defence of which (written by the programme’s creator) can be read at
9 Matthew 10: 34-35
10 Luke 6: 22
11 John 15: 18
Matt Vaughan works for the mission agency Interserve, editing their quarterly magazine “Go” and working as PA to the Director, Steve Bell. He is a keen writer, has been published in a range of Christian and secular publications, and also works with Muslims in his spare time.
These posts are by guest authors for Fulcrum