A New Generation Expresses its Skepticism and Frustration with Christianity

"A new study by The Barna Group conducted among 16- to 29-year-olds shows that a new generation is more skeptical of and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago.

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The study explored twenty specific images related to Christianity, including ten favorable and ten unfavorable perceptions. Among young non-Christians, nine out of the top 12 perceptions were negative. Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%) - representing large proportions of young outsiders who attach these negative labels to Christians. [...] Even among young Christians, many of the negative images generated significant traction. Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political. One-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality.

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Their perceptions about Christianity were not always accurate, but what surprised me was not only the severity of their frustration with Christians, but also how frequently young born again Christians expressed some of the very same comments as young non-Christians."

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"Going into this three-year project, I assumed that people’s perceptions were generally soft, based on misinformation, and would gradually morph into more traditional views. But then, as we probed why young people had come to such conclusions, I was surprised how much their perceptions were rooted in specific stories and personal interactions with Christians and in churches. When they labeled Christians as judgmental this was not merely spiritual defensiveness. It was frequently the result of truly ‘unChristian’ experiences. We discovered that the descriptions that young people offered of Christianity were more thoughtful, nuanced, and experiential than expected."

Barna Group, September 24, 2007

No excerpt can do this survey justice, so better read the whole article!
You can even buy the book:

"The study of Christianity’s slipping image is explored in a new book, entitled unChristian, by David Kinnaman, the president of The Barna Group. The study is a result of collaboration between Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons of the Fermi Project."

Profits in the name of religion

"Islamic banking is another phenomenon which I have personally found quite puzzling because by replacing “interest” with “profit” and engaging a religious scholar to put his seal on a transaction does not make that particular transaction “halal” in my opinion. Living in the interconnected global economy as we do how does an Islamic bank ensure that not a rupee/dirham/dollar is coming from a source that generates interest? With the consumer banking industry experiencing tremendous growth in the past nine years with the advent of Mr Shaukat Aziz in Pakistan, Islamic banks have proliferated by the dozen. Hoardings scream out to us to bank the “halal” way implying that the other banks are offering “haram” services. Advertisements call out to the faithful to use “halal” debit cards and enter to win a free umra, and now the faithful can even accumulate points which will ultimately lead to Paradise once they’ve got enough points to perform a free Haj. Is this what it has all come down to? Islamic banks are like any other banks and the investors who set them up have done so not to ensure the spiritual well-being of their customers but to make huge profits — nothing more and nothing less.

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By using the emotional pull of religion to increase deposits somehow just doesn’t strike me as a particularly clean way of making money."

Shakir Husain, The News, Pakistan, 30 July 2007

[Study] Knowledge of any sort is damaging to fundamentalism

Bob Altemeyer is a researcher from the University of Manitoba, and he’s done a lot of work studying right wing authoritarians.

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"Christian fundamentalism has three great enemies in the struggle to retain its children, judging by the stories its apostates tell: weaknesses in its own teachings, science, and hypocrisy."

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"For the first problem: when the Bible is actually read, the actual text causes problems for the discerning reader. “The Bible was, they said, too often inconsistent, petty, boring, appalling, self-serving, or unbelievable.” Altemeyer found that although many fundamentalist Christians profess allegiance to an inerrant Bible, very few have actually read it completely for themselves and some who do find the inconsistencies too great."

Pandagon.net April 16th, 2007

This is good news for Atheist bible thumpers! Thump 'em hard! (Notice the PDF)