Younger Christians

Apparently, young American Christians aren't driving their fathers' churches. According to a new book called unChristian, the authors, Kinnamon and Lyons, have found that a large group of evangelical teens and twenties find their beliefs relevant and necessary while they hold a highly negative view of the institution of the American church.

The book reveals that “four out of five young churchgoers say that Christianity is antihomosexual; half describe it as judgmental, too involved in politics, hypocritical, and confusing; one-third believe their faith is old-fashioned and out of touch with reality; and one-quarter of young Christians believe it is boring and insensitive to others.” (Kinnamon & Lyons, unChristian, Baker Books, 2007, pp.33-34)

Michael Craven, president of the Center for Christ and Culture says on his blog:

This appears to be a growing sentiment among many younger Christians in America today. They love Jesus but they want little to do with His Church.

Couple this with the reports of many evangelicals making concerted efforts to include poverty, education, and health care in their "pro-life" agenda as well as expressing real concern with the stae of the environment, and you have the beginnings of a movement among American fundamentalists.

Certainly, not all church-goers agree. Nonetheless, this bodes well for the church and its image; an image, I believe, that has become bleak and intolerant in the wake of Falwell and his Coalition. As a matter of fact, according to the book,

Among young people (aged 16-29), roughly 49 percent hold an “extraordinarily negative” view of evangelical Christians and only 3 percent have a “good” impression.

This image will continue to be a problem for the American church until they make efforts to address the problems spelled out in the book. As it stands right now, though, it seems that many young Christians see the church the way I do, as a farty old man, scratching his ass as he mutters derisively about the way things used to be.