DR. JACK R. VAN ENS, AUTHOR

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WIPE THE SMIRK OFF CHRISTIANITY'S FACE

Christianity's profile in the U.S. needs a heavy dose of spiritual Botox. Many onlookers divorced from organized religion don't like what they see in Christianity.

David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group that measures spiritual trends, renders a dire verdict in his book Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity ...and Why It Matters. Kinnaman isn't some religious hack who disavows the Christian faith in which he was raised. He's an evangelical preacher's kid who's alarmed by how many young believers negatively perceive institutionalized Christianity. As pollsters, the Barna Group ranks #1 in evangelical circles for fair and accurate appraisals of what driving forces shape Christianity's profile.

Kinnaman, when I heard him speak to leading evangelical leaders earlier this spring in Northampton, MA, believes Christianity's face turns off youth. He begins his book with the indictment, "Christianity has an image problem."

Those distanced from pulpits and pews who were reared in churches see organized religion sporting a facial smirk. "The primary reason outsiders feel hostile towards Christians, and especially conservative Christians," Kinnaman discovered in his polling, "is not because of any specific theological perspective. What they react negatively to is our 'swagger,' how we go about things and the sense of self-importance we project."

"One of the surprising insights from our research," Kinnaman reveals, "is that the growing hostility towards Christians is very much a reflection of what outsiders feel they receive from believers. They say their aggression simply matches the oversized opinions and egos of Christians. One outsider put it this way: 'Most people I have met assume that Christian means very conservative, entrenched in their thinking, antigay, anti-choice, angry, violent, illogical, empire builders; they want to covert everyone, and they generally cannot live peacefully with anyone who doesn't believe what they believe.'"

Why wield Christianity like a judgmental cudgel, bullying unbelievers? Didn't the Apostle Paul groom his successors to reflect Christ's winsome image? "The Lord's servants must not quarrel but be kind to everyone.... They should gently teach those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people's hearts, and they will believe the truth" ( II Timothy 2:24-25).

Evangelical Christians aligned with the Republican Party stand to lose political clout if it's true that Christianity with a smirk turns off voters.

Kinnaman tracks the alarming shift of perception those outside organized Christianity hold. A seismic shift has occurred in the past quarter century regarding how Christianity is viewed. There's a growing tidal wave of resentment and hostility toward Christianity with a smirk.

"In 1996," recounts Kinnaman, "our firm released the report 'Christianity Has a Strong Positive Image Despite Fewer Active Participants.' The study showed that Americans, even those on the outside looking in-atheists and agnostics, those of a faith other than Christianity, or unchurched individuals with no firm religious convictions-we discovered that 85 percent were favorable toward Christianity's role in society."

Now, a decade later, Kinnaman grimly reports, "The image of the Christian faith has suffered a major setback. Our most recent data show that young outsiders have lost much of their respect for the Christian faith. These days nearly two out of every five young outsiders (38 percent) claim to have a 'bad impression of present-day Christianity.' Beyond this, one-third of young outsiders said that Christianity represents a negative image with which we do not want to be associated."

The Republican Party, linked with Christianity sporting a smirk, has lost the youth vote.

Faith can't exist in a vacuum. It needs models who live by its beliefs. Who are these representatives that, for good or ill, model what our youth identify as Christian faith?

The Barna Group quizzed young Americans, asking them to tell what personalities popped into mind as the best-known Christians in the land. Those aged sixteen to twenty-nine who are wary of organized Christianity, nominated as their top five candidates the Pope (tabbed by16 percent of outsiders), George W. Bush (13 percent), Jesus (9 percent), Billy Graham (7 percent), and Martin Luther King Jr. (6 percent).

Our president only trails the Pope when youth answer who they see reflecting the Christian image. Too often, though, when George W. Bush pushes power buttons he comes across as cocky. He smirks when he knows he's right.

His former press secretary, Scott McClellan, in his tell-all memoir What Happened laments because Bush didn't deliver on his promise to rid Beltway of its duplicity. He "chose to play the Washington game the way he found it," chides McClelland, having turned "away from candor and honesty."