unchristian
I’m reading a book that I just picked up called unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters by David Kinnaman. It is an analysis of exhaustive research by the Barna Group and details what people outside of the Christian faith think about it and its adherents and why.
The book is fascinating, not so much because I found the results surprising, although some Christians may, but because of how honest people were in responding to the questions. That gives me some hope that perhaps those at whom the criticism is directed may be able to hear it and do something about it. As a member of the group being critiqued, I both agree with almost all of the criticisms and I think massive change is needed.
In general, the research shows that Christianity is perceived like this:
- Hypocritical, that Christians try to portray themselves as morally superior, with a polished image that is inaccurate, and that churches convey an image that they exist only for virtuous and pure people.
- Too focused on getting converts, and not actually caring about people or loving people as they are. Instead, people feel treated only like targets for conversion and (often rightly) question Christians’ motives in interaction with them.
- Antihomosexual, bigoted and fixated on “curing” homosexuals while also leveraging political solutions against them.
- Sheltered, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality, preferring simplistic solutions and answers to a genuinely complex reality.
- Too political, overly motivated by a political agenda that puts personal beliefs and preferences above valuing others, preferring to represent issues and fight over them instead of engaging in dialogue and working with others to find workable and acceptable solutions to real problems.
- Judgmental, not honest about attitudes and perspectives about others, and it is doubted whether Christians really love people as we say we do, at least those who disagree with us.
There it is. And you know what? I agree.
Reading through the research, these opinions did not arise in a vacuum. They were not caused by media portrayals. Almost everyone questioned had experience with Christian friends or acquaintances. Most had spent at least one month regularly attending a church. Almost all who expressed a negative opinion said that they did so because of one or more personal bad experiences with Christian behavior or attitudes. Only a small percentage had anything other than a neutral opinion of standard Christian doctrine. Hmm.
I am encouraged by reading that the majority of Christians under the age of about 30 also agreed. This could bode well for some needed changes in behavior and attitudes.
What I would like to see is a Christianity populated by people who are kind, gentle, loving, compassionate, consistent in their words and actions, honest, friendly, and who place a greater importance on serving others than on political action designed to fight against the world. That is also the main thrust of the book, which is mainly intended for a Christian audience, to look for ways in which the overall Christian community is poorly representing what it believes and recommend ways to change, so that behavior lines up more directly with stated doctrine. Here’s hoping the book finds a wide audience.
Why the hell are your religious viewpoints polluting a Ubuntu Forum? (RSS Feeds for Ubuntu)
Because they are a real part of who I am, and I am a part of a wider Ubuntu community that is made up of diverse, wonderful people who (generally) enjoy reading and hearing about thoughts, ideas, and perspectives that they do not necessarily share. I certainly enjoy reading the “off topic” posts that other community members make.
Angela, RELAX! its not “polluting” anything – the planet ubuntu wiki says that posts to Planet should be at least occasionally on topic. There are loads of other posts not related to ubuntu on there, and are they “polluting” planet?
Anyway, back to Matthew, good article and Id totally agree with the research done. It does need changing and hopefully it will change.
BR
Jussi
Maybe you should keep your small ideas and limited understandings to yourself or share with your friends. You are not important enough to pretend that the world in general gives one crap what you think.
The kindergarden theme to your blog speaks volumes about who you are.
While I would consider myself to be christian, my major beef is with the anti-intellectual, the world’s gonna end so we don’t need to plan for the future, God’s gonna burn it up anyway so make sure you extract everything useful before it goes attitude.
Why is it that nothing out of all God’s amazing creations has any value to us? There is a passage in Revelations that says that he will destroy those destroying the earth. Are we putting our souls at risk by being so gung-ho to go to heaven that we willingly participate in destroying his creations?
You forgot superstitious, gullible and illogical.
I just solved the problem by unsubscribing from the “Planet Ubuntu” RSS feed, so that *I* can stay “on topic”.
Nice post. Happy it reaches the planet, else I would never read it.
I come from a catholic family (although not a strict one). Besides that I am not a very religious person, i think most accurate description would be “agnost” for me. Religion is more like culture for me then it has anything to do with believing, god and such.
@Angela:
Intolerance and closed mindedness is ugly, regardless of the person in whom it is found. People who can or will not listen to others should not reasonably expect to be heard themselves.
Please remember this as you note that I do not edit or delete comments for any reason other than spam or gross vulgarity.
Christian here, over 30, and I agree. I find that most Christians, at least in America, give Christianity a bad name by completely “not getting it”. They get myopically focused on some list of rules, which often represent their favorite church rather than Christian doctrine, then they follow them (or not) and look down their noses at those who don’t.
Jesus had a lot of stuff to say about what you should be doing. Love your neighbor and so on. Everything He had to say about what *not* to do boiled down to one thing. Don’t judge. He didn’t have a lot of hangups about drinking, gambling, or heck, even prostitution or public corruption. Judge not, lest ye be judged. Cast the first stone, and so on. As a group, we Christians are pretty lousy about that, and have earned our reputation.
And my $0.02 on this being on the planet, I don’t like it either. I like to subscribe to Ubuntu blogs for Ubuntu info, and religious blogs for things like this. On my own blog, I can have categories and only put the feed for the appropriate category on a given planet. I’d like to recommend doing the same. Non-judgementally, of course!
(here via Planet Ubuntu)
Your last paragraph (“kind, gentle, loving, compassionate, consistent in their words and actions, honest, friendly, and who place a greater importance on serving others than on political action designed to fight against the world”) describes a good friend and former classmate of mine who was raised in a very conservative Christian household. Despite the troubles of being gay in today’s church, he has kept his faith (although switching to a United congregation) and remains one of the most intelligent, level-headed and diligent people I know.
While more of an agnostic or pantheist myself, I consider him a role model, and always felt a bit humbled seeing the well-thumbed study Bible on his nightstand. I will have to ask him if he has read Kinnaman’s book.
Ironically the hostile comments from the ‘clairvoyant’ reader and others are both “too political” (#5) and “judgemental” (#6). I suppose this should remind us that atheism is only another religious viewpoint, with its own share of extremists.
Thanks for this Matthew. I’ve added it to my wishlist
Angela – unfortunately if you want to get some of the good information out of Planet Ubuntu, you also get this useless crap from people who have become experts after reading one book.
In time these annoying little people go away.
I didn’t mind this post all too much myself, but I do agree that I’d like to see Planet Ubuntu be a little more focused.
That said, a Planet Ubuntu-offtopic could be cool too, I might even subscribe.
matthew – thanks for posting about unchristian. glad you liked it. sorry you caught some flak for your post. best of luck in your effort to pursue God. best, David Kinnaman
I’m an atheist, and I too agree with those comments. I’m starting to find Christians (or at least the ones who get the publicity) more and more scary so it’s very heartening to come across those who do get it.
As for Angela and Mickey, ignore them, they don’t deserve any more than that. If they really didn’t care for what you wrote they wouldn’t keep coming back here and commenting on it. Don’t feed the trolls..
Thanks for the post, and thanks for sharing it with the planet.
Nice insights, I hope that someday people will be able to think for themselves rather then learning old angry books by heart. Tolerance, patience and love have no relation with religion others than these are words constantly abused to justify the world’s best organized commercial companies (speak organized religions). Has anyone started to count how much money they collected in the last two milleniums? And why is it still forbidden (in lots of people’s minds) to question this? I agree to that religion exists today mainly due to historical and cultural reasons in the first world and for illiteracy and poverty in the rest of the world …
I personally would also like to see a more focused Planet Ubuntu, there are quite a lot of unrelated posts today, though this one was insightful. Thanks
I’m roman catholic and i absolutly don’t agree with that. It’s perhaps the american point of view about some american christians but in France, it’s not like that at all. I live my religion freely without any try to convert anyone (lots of friends are agnostic or atheist; my boss is an ex-muslim now atheist); i don’t get political at all when it comes to religion except when someone wants to rediscuss 1905 separation of Church and States law; I don’t feel morally superior at all because of the way i believe; i’m perhaps jugdemental but never about religion; i’m not antihomosexual even if i have no gay friend.
You should stop meaning all ‘christians’ as a big group of people wanting you to convert. That’s not true. Perhaps in USA, i don’t know, i’ve never been there. But i can find you at least one dozen of christians who don’t care about your religion or your beliefs in whatever your want (God, Jupiter, Great White Sausage, i don’t know).
matthew.. well said. not a religious man myself for exactly the reasons you listed here and many more. But I respect those that are – to each his own.
I think the occasional “off topic” on the Planet is more than welcome. It is a fundamental concept of the open source “community” to share and exchange ideas and knowledge.
I found your post interesting and unbiased. Some people here need to grow up and read what they want and ignore what they want.
I applaud you for the self-criticism. Perhaps if more people would, others would “listen” to what they had to say.
I’ll have to look up that book, it’s definitely something I would like to read. I have felt many of the same things about myself and the church for quite some time. Thanks for posting about it and making it known.
The Truth: There is No God
@Miguel: O really? And who made you God to determine this?
@Other trolls: grow up please.
@Matthew: Good on you for having a voice on an unpopular topic, such as religion. I suggest you grab a copy of George Barna & Frank Viola’s book “Pagan Chrisitanity”, if you want some more eye-opening
As a Christian I’ve never seen such an accurate and concise depiction of Christianity’s current image.
Well done to David Kinnaman and the researchers. Let this be a message for all of us to take to heart.
Thanks to all who have commented, even the trolls.
CombatWombat: thanks for the book recommendation. I’ll look it up.
@CombatWombat: There’s no need to be God to make such determination.
You can also say: There is No Yeti.
And that is true, unless someone proves there is one, but that’s not the case of God, none has ever been able to prove it….No matter how hard they tried…
My perspective of Christians, as a former Christian, is rather different from the one you describe. I would describe _many_ as deluded, irrational, willingly ignorant, and so emotionally invested in their beliefs that they are prone to violence when those beliefs are attacked. Much like muslims, jews, or any other religious group.
There are some fantastic videos on Youtube which explain how Christianity is viewed if you wish to pursue this investigation further. Try this one for starters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQBDGMj2h-c
Since your second sentence includes the word “many,” I actually agree with you.
Thanks for the link and comment.
[...] Matthew Helmke: unchristian [...]
Magical thinking and supernaturalism still thrive.
The de-deification of western culture is our task for the next thousand years.
The Anti-supernaturalist
hey…don’t worry about what critics and skeptics say about the truth…you and I know that God is almighty and that Christianity as a whole has become corrupted…so what if they think it doesn’t matter…you know it DOES…I’m reading unChristian at the moment and it truly has a lot of good points…I’m pullin for you
Is not that the vocal minority tend to be the shrill, irrational fanatics that most people associate with that group? The comments on this thread being case in point that be it christianity or the opposite, these characters are always those that are remembered by the media and the general public because they are entertaining in their absurd posturing and are instantly memorable.
Who wants to listen to a bland self-doubting agnostic discussing Darwin when you can have the full fanaticism of Dawkins absolutist atheism pounding at you with more energy than a swarm of big-tent revivalists?
I’m not christian. But I do not agree. Christianity is not a political or entertainment institution, it’s a religion. And a religion is not to be personalized “à la carte”. It’s a riigid faith (because dictated by God) and it has to keep this shape.
It’s rather normal for a religion to be conservative, hypocritical, sure about the exclusive truth of its faith, etc.
For instance, you can’t wait for the pope to recommend open-sex and homosexuality… It would be absurd. And the fact that homosexuality is not a sane way is not a Christians decision, but it’s a God word. And it’s therefore unalterable.
You are the kind of people who misunderstand the religious fact (actually almost everyone misunderstand it) and you believe that religion should be the coolest way for meeting people, for celebrating together, for having good meals and parties, for loving everyone, etc.
But you forget the most important fact of the religion, which is the faith in God. That’s the very only point which really matters, and that’s it.
And if you consider the religion this way, nothing else matters. And so the vision others have of your way of life doesn’t matter as well. If you do not, that means you are not really looking for a religion but for a community or something like that. And that’s not the same goal guy.
ceblab: many times in your post you refer to what you believe I think. Your perception is wrong. What I would like is for Christians to actually live what the book teaches and quit focusing on fighting against culture. Love your neighbor as yourself. Care for the widows and orphans. Be hospitable to the stranger. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself (remembering from the parable of The Good Samaritan who our neighbor actually is and to quit trying to redefine things to stay within the letter of the law while completely missing the spirit). Everything mentioned in my original article points directly at failures to do these things–not any personal desire to change the nature of religion. I’m an insider saying, “Hey, we aren’t measuring up to our own values, and we’ve tacked on a ton that don’t originate with Christ.”
I wouldn’t dream of telling the Pope anything (especially since I’m not Catholic), but if I did, I think he would agree with my previous paragraph.