Be wary of statistics
Judging from the news coverage, it would be easy to assume that evangelicals are a hate-filled, hypocritical religious group in decline in America. Not so fast, says Bradley Wright, who thinks that poor research and an anti-Christian conspiracy exists in America, leading to these unflattering and untrue assumptions about Christians.
Wright, an associate professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, believes that organizations like the renowned and highly respected American Christian research agency, the Barna Group (among others), are intentionally providing bad research about evangelical Christianity in American culture. In Wright's newest book, he presents a very different view, based upon what he says is good, sound, scientific research.
He begins with the following opening salvo: “You may have heard the bad news about Christianity in America: The church is shrinking; Christians get divorced more than anyone else; non-Christians have very low opinions of Christians; and on and on it goes. This disheartening news is often given to us from statistics, which we seem to encounter everywhere."
Statistics, he says, should continually be challenged. In fact, that is what this book is all about: challenging what Wright considers to be bad research and dire predictions and pronouncements.
Wright's conclusions are very different from those of George Barna. Wright purports that one of the main the reasons for the bad reputation of the Christian church in general and the evangelical church in particular in America is media coverage. Bad news sells better than good news, even if the reality of the bad news is miniscule in relation to the everyday reality of the organization or group.
So a single moral failure on the part of a noted evangelical pastor or church becomes a supposed sign of something more. The failure migrates from the specific case to a general statement about the movement as a whole. This raises some serious questions about how Christians and churches analyze themselves, the effectiveness of their ministries and the reputation they have in society.
Wright reminds us that we don't need to believe everything we read and hear about who Christians really are and what we're really doing. Question it all, he says, and return to the primary goal and objective for which we are called by God: to be His agents of change in this world. Good advice for all of us.
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