unChristian

An interview with David Kinnaman on the outsider’s perspective of Christianity

By Linda Canup

If non-Christians were the first to call Jesus’ followers “Christians,” then it seems only fitting to ask them what it means to be unChristian. Because that’s precisely how a lot of them think believers are acting today.

David Kinnaman, President of the Barna Group, analyzed over a dozen national surveys and interviewed people across varying demographics regarding their opinions of Christians. He discovered that, apart from other findings, six common negative perceptions exist—that Christians are hypocritical, proselytizers, anti-homosexual, sheltered, judgmental, and too political.

In Touch magazine talked with David about his findings, which were published in his book unChristian. Here’s what he had to say.

ITM: What prompted the research project?

It began a few years ago when my friend Gabe Lyons was starting a nonprofit organization to try to study and reclaim the Christian image in the marketplace—not because of the church’s dwindling popularity, but because of this feeling that things had really shifted to become more negative and antagonistic towards Christianity. He thought people were missing some of the really good stuff that was happening. He asked me to do a study to find out what people aged 15 to 29 thought about Christians.

ITM: How would you summarize what you found?

I found the most helpful way of describing our findings was to call upon Jesus’ story of the prodigal son. There are things about this generation that are much like the younger son—including moral laxity and “spending the inheritance” of a western, godly culture. Unfortunately, most of us in the church, rather than taking the role of the unconditionally loving father in the story, take on the role of the older brother.

However, God is just as concerned about the older brother’s self-righteousness as He is about the Prodigal Son’s sinful living. That’s really the core message of unChristian. Even though some of the perceptions outsiders have may not be accurate, we inside the church have an equally serious—and in some ways a more dangerous—problem of trying to dictate the terms by which God forgives and restores people. Our self-righteousness, our religiosity, our false forms of religion are just as wrong as the sins of a new generation.

ITM: Why do you think this view of Christians came about?

Well, I think there are a number of reasons. One is that Americans, across the board, are more skeptical of all types of institutions—government, business, higher education, medicine, organized labor, and organized religion. Everything is subject to a greater degree of skepticism. So young people are simply part of that larger stream. They’re jaded, savvy, and “marketed to” to death.

One of the interesting critiques of Christians is that we sound as if we’re using a script, a talking point script, as if we’re doing a bunch of media interviews about our faith. It doesn’t come across as real.

So part of it is an awareness of our context. Our world has become so media-saturated and easy to critique. Consider the blog world. You’ve got the ability to offer snarky, cynical observations about anything in life, and there are no real editorial parameters, no filter. You can blog, or podcast, or YouTube, or get on cable networks and radio anytime. And you get attention for your meanness. People who are not Christians are drinking from that same well. We’re all more comfortable with being mean now.

But the other side is a deeper spiritual story, a story of our fallenness. Even though some of us are really committed Christ-followers, Satan trips us up by getting us to imagine that we’re the ones who restore people. He plants the idea that it’s our level of smarts and our willingness to live with people who are sinners that makes us better. But it’s always the Holy Spirit. It’s Jesus in us who does it.

ITM: How have people responded to the results of your study?

We really were concerned about the way people would react, because there is so much in our culture about homosexuality and politics, which raises two big criticisms about Christians—people say we’re too political and that we’re anti-homosexual—but for the most part, readers have been very responsive.

At the core of it, we’re saying that no one is brought to Jesus by being beaten over the head with a two-by-four about his life. Yes, sometimes it requires bold proclamation of the gospel. But that always comes from a heart of love, a heart of understanding about our own debt to God. He has forgiven us everything. So we have no right to lord it over people who just don’t see that yet.

It’s been really neat to see people respond out of a deep heart of wanting to be more Christlike in their lives. None of us want to be known as judgmental and hypocritical.

Interestingly, the perceptions people had about Jesus were not the six we found in our study—like being judgmental, hypocritical, or out of touch with reality. In fact, Jesus was judged most strongly by people who were religious, who were described as “straining gnats and then swallowing camels” (Matt. 23:24). This Pharisee-like religion happens in every era. We think we’ve got a corner on how God is going to work with people.

ITM: Have various generations responded differently from one another?

Yes, I think so. What I find from the older generations is that the book has helped them understand the world their children and grandchildren are growing up in. We talk about being judgmental and how it is better to help people see God’s purposes for them, and their imago dei, or image of God. This way, we can direct people into God’s way of life without judging them for superficial or exterior things.

For those under the age of 40, and those under the age of 30 in particular, we’ve heard a lot of people saying, “Yes, these are all things we’ve been thinking and feeling for a long time.” We know it’s important to change culture, but we’re increasingly uncomfortable with politics as the means. You change culture, not by its laws exclusively, but by changing the hearts of the people in that culture.

We have to be close enough to people who are sinners in order to influence them. Yes, God wants us to be pure, but also to be emotionally and physically close to people who are broken. We can’t withdraw from the world and also hope to influence it.

ITM: What kind of fundamental changes do we need to make?

To be really practical about it, I think we all need less of the media in our world and more of the Bible. This is true for people who are non-Christians, because the media makes them comfortable with violence, sexuality, and all kinds of ungodly things.

But it’s also true for those of us in the church. We have to be careful not to consume too much media—including both secular and Christian media sources. Media isn’t the same thing as God’s Word. We need to spend as much time as possible being changed on the inside so that our older-brother mentality gets stripped away and our younger-brother mentality is reconciled to God.

I think our relationships with people and our conversations are so critical. In our research, most young non-Christians said they have an average of five friends who are believers. Many of them have been to a Christian church and have at some point considered becoming a believer.

They would say, “Most of the church experiences that I’ve had have led me to believe that Christians are unChristian and that they are no longer as Jesus intended. But even though most of the people I know are this way, there is one person, one friend, who is an exception. And while I’m still not ready to become a Christian, if I were, that’s the kind of Christian I’d want to be.”

These friends are the kind of people that spend the most time letting God’s way of thinking and God’s way of being come through their lives. They’re the ones who ultimately spend the most time in Scripture and prayer. They let other people correct them and challenge them on the way they are living.

It’s really hard to be that kind of soft yet bold Christian. And while we can’t change everybody’s perceptions about us, if each of us were to be more careful representatives of Christ in our relationships, we could have a real impact on what those two, three, or four neighbors think of us. The cumulative effect of that could be huge.

ITM: Have any of your findings impacted you personally?

Absolutely. Through this process, God brought to light my own pride and spiritual arrogance and helped me see the way I converse with people. The Bible says that love doesn’t keep a record of wrongs and it never fails. But then why do I so often go to this place of intellectual superiority instead? First Corinthians 5 says it’s our job to keep fellow Christians from sinning, but it’s not our job to judge those outside the church.

The Barna study really made me reconsider what I’m asking people who are not Christians to do. Am I trying to save them to a morality first? Or am I trying to save them to Jesus first? That’s a huge question for all of us. It’s the older brother in the story of the prodigal son who is trying to save his younger brother to a morality, but his heart is still wrong. And that’s very different from the father, who wants the heart of the younger son to turn to him and be soft and repentant.

Jesus tells another relevant story of two people working in a field. One works all day, and then one comes at the very last minute. They both earn the same reward. Who gets tweaked about the last-minute salvation? Those of us who have been Christians our whole lives, who have been living pretty good lives. But again, God doesn’t measure our obedience or our hearts based on how “pretty good” we are. He measures it based on how obedient and faithful we are to Him. So it’s quite possible for us to attend church but to be just as sinful as someone who’s never set foot in a church.

ITM: What transformations do you hope to see in Christians over the next ten years?

There’s not an easy solution, like simply running an advertising campaign, or having more Christians in television, or somehow getting the media to just give us a break. We need to realize how deeply God has wired human beings for relationships, for conversation, and for spiritual truth. It’s our privilege and opportunity to convey that truth to people in our families, neighborhoods, and workplaces.

We need to see the kingdom things more clearly—and to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those things to us. Then, we must do more of those things, but base them less on our pride, position, or power. Jesus is our example in this. He constantly divested Himself of power and refused to take political or moral control. Instead, He kept teaching about the kingdom of heaven and the power of God to transform lives.

As representatives of Jesus, we need to be more like Him. This means loving people. It means being perfectly bold and perfectly sensitive at the same time—perfectly willing to tell God’s truth, but also perfectly willing to extend God’s grace.

 

Learn how unbelievers view people of faith and what we can do to bring that perception more in line with biblical Christianity.

unChristian

Hardcover | $17 (U.S.)