Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told

I just finished an interesting book called Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told by Bradley Wright. Wright argues that many statistics about Christians and the state of Christianity today are grossly misleading, exaggerated, or just plain wrong, stats like “only prostitutes rank lower than Christians in terms of respect in the mind of the public.” The media often focuses on the worst possible statistics about Christians because bad news sells, while pastors often highlight similar statistics in an effort to encourage church members to live devoutly. Wright, however, paints a much brighter picture of the state of Christianity.

Wright’s book is about statistics and surveys. As a statistical book, it offers great insight into how Christians think, and how non-Christians think about Christians. But as a statistical book, it necessarily falls short in offering a complete picture of the Christian landscape. First, surveys cannot measure genuine Christian devotion. My evidence is largely anecdotal, but most churches seem to average attendance somewhere between one-quarter to one-half of their resident membership. Though most Americans would claim to be Christian, large numbers of these self-professed believers have little to no involvement in the church. Such anecdotal evidence leads me to think that we do have something of a crisis in the church today.

Second, Wright’s analysis did not distinguish between individual churches since he was operating at a denominational or large-group level. While he could claim that church attendance numbers were not plummeting as some might want us to believe, I would be curious to know if certain kinds of churches are suffering major loses in attendance. For example, with the rise of mega-churches, have smaller, more traditional churches suffered in favor of larger, more contemporary churches? I realize that these questions are outside of Wright’s scope, but answers to these questions would certainly help me apply his findings to my particular setting. For example, that somewhere between 70-80% of American churches are plateaued or declining has become a truism (at least to any graduate of NOBTS in the last 10 years). But how could Wright’s conclusion that the state of the church is relatively healthy be true if 70-80% of our churches are struggling?

Though Wright’s book left me with a few questions, overall he offered a powerful reminder of the need to love and support Christ’s church instead of lambasting her. Often we feel the need to motivate people by painting a grim picture of the church in desperate need of devout believers. Such motivation does not lead to permanent change. We should be motivated by love for Christ’s church, not fear over her impending doom. We already know that she is victorious. We should be motivated because we have the chance to be a part of God’s master plan, not because we fear that His church will not survive unless we are scared into action.