David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons
"hypocritical, sheltered, insulated, homophobic, judgmental"
"Christians are supposed to represent Christ to the world. But according to the latest report card, something has gone terribly wrong. Using descriptions like “hypocritical,” “insensitive,” and “judgmental,” young Americans share an impression of Christians that’s nothing short of . . . unChristian.
Groundbreaking research into the perceptions of sixteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds reveals that Christians have taken several giant steps backward in one of their most important assignments. The surprising details of the study, commissioned by Fermi Project and conducted by The Barna Group, are presented with uncompromising honesty in unChristian.
Find out why these negative perceptions exist, learn how to reverse them in a Christlike manner, and discover practical examples of how Christians can positively contribute to culture."
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Blog review:
http://tungstenfluff.typepad.com/tungsten_fluff/books/
April 22, 2008
unChristian: Judgmental
"I think the Judgmental chapter moved me to self-examination more than any other in the book. To summarize: unChristian is an analysis of polling data from the 16-to-41-year-old age groups regarding their views of Christians and the church. Six “impressions” stood out from the noise: hypocritical, anti-homosexual, sheltered, too political, overly focused on conversion and judgmental.
"A definition, “To be judgmental is to point out something that is wrong in someone else’s life, making the person feel put down, excluded, and marginalized. [It] is fueled by self-righteousness, the misguided inner motivation to make our own life look better by comparing it to the lives of others.” (p182) If this definition knocks us off-guard, the authors immediately follow-up with the statistic that 87% of non-Christian young people polled used the term judgmental to describe Christians. This becomes a prejudice and a challenge we face when introducing ourselves as Christ-followers to unchurched people (p183).
...
"As a post-script, Jud Wilhite quotes CS Lewis’ encouragement to give each other the same kind of slack we give ourselves (p198). Enjoy and think:
"There is someone I love, even though I don’t approve of what he does. There is someone I accept, though some of his thoughts and actions revolt me. There is someone I forgive, though he hurts the people I love the most. That person is me."
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