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Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...and Other Lies You've Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media

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Bradley Wright's new book Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...and Other Lies You've Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media calmly and clearly sorts through statistics about Christians in America today.

Wright is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. Sociologists Rodney Stark and Christian Smith blurb the book positively as does Scot McKnight. In the book, he wisely points out the many reasons statistics can get garbled and exaggerated. Many hyperbolic reports of the demise of Christians and evangelicals from a variety of sources are exposed as faulty. Wright is generally gentle in his criticisms and his sense of humor pops up throughout the book.

The conclusion includes this summary judgment, "You know, I'm kind of enjoying this oversimplification, so let's take it a step further. That's right, after about a year of reading the scholarly literature and analyzing scores of data sets, I am distilling my evaluation of Evangelical Christianity to a single grade. I give American Evangelical Christianity a B" (213). To a large extent, he finds evangelicals are doing quite well. He is most concerned about the tendency of white evangelicals to be suspicious of people of other races. But even this area has a bright spot as the trend appears to be improving.

What is perhaps most refreshing about Wright's book is his encouragement for regular people to have a healthy skepticism toward statistics. "If nothing else, I hope you realize the need to be more skeptical when it comes to statistics about Christianity" (218). The sloppy use of statistics is a stain on both secular journalists and Christian authors. Wright's book is a significant dose of truth and sanity among the cacophony of shrill pronouncements. Get it and become a voice of reason in your sphere of influence.

A few years ago, the Barna Group polled 270 non-Christians regarding their impressions of eleven different social groups. Only 22% of respondents held a favorable impression of "Evangelicals." Evangelicals thus ranked tenth out of eleven on the poll, below lesbians (23%) but above prostitutes (5%). As this statistical factoid traveled through print and online media, it morphed into proof that American society as a whole, not just a small sample of non-Christians, held evangelicals in contempt. One blogger wrote: "Only prostitutes rank lower than evangelicals in terms of respect in the mind of the public."

Brad Wright begins Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites... with the story of this statistical factoid to make a point and to ask a question.

The point? Caveat lector. Statistics require interpretation. In the case of Barna's poll, "Evangelicals" ranked tenth but "Born-again Christians" ranked third, indicating respondent confusion about what evangelicals are. (Door-to-door evangelists, perhaps?) Twenty-two percent of respondents didn't even know what an Evangelical was. The "don't know" response for all the other ten groups was 11% or less. Moreover, the poll's sample was small. But even if its findings were accurate, what was their significance? According to the poll, 22% of respondents held a favorable impression, 33% no impression, 23% an unfavorable impression, and 22% don't know. Only one in four respondents had an unfavorable impression of evangelicals. Given that all the respondents were non-Christians, is this so bad?

The question? Why do so many people believe the worst about Christians? The reason secular media reports negative statistics about Christianity is obvious: "If it bleeds, it leads." People love to read bad news. If the bad news is the hypocrisy of Christians, so much the better for sales! But why do Christian media report the same negative statistics. "Why," as a religion reporter once asked Wright, "do you evangelicals love to make up and say such bad things about yourselves?" The answer has to do with incentives: "Christian authors, speakers, and leaders will sometimes pass along inaccurate, negative information in their effort to help the church" (emphasis added). If only 22% of non-Christians hold a favorable impression of evangelicals, for example, then perhaps a more favorable impression will lead to more converts. Hence we see the flood of books and seminars about how to make a better impression on potential converts.

What if the state of Christianity in America is not so dire, however? Wright is associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut and an evangelical Christian. The core of Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites... is an examination of the best statistical information on six topics: church growth, demographics, beliefs and practices, sinning, loving others, and non-Christian attitudes toward evangelicals.

The alarmist reading of the statistics on these six topics can be expressed this way: Christianity in America is dying. Christians are "largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command" (an actual quote from a Washington Post reporter). American Christians don't hold orthodox beliefs or practice spiritual disciplines anymore. They sin as much as non-Christians. They love less than non-Christians. And non-Christians hate evangelicals.

The best statistical information on these six topics leads Wright to conclude otherwise. As a teacher, Wright even offers a grade for each topic he explores. Here are his grades for the topic of sinning:

Divorce and living together, B: Relatively low rates, and less among frequent [church] attendees, but increasing over time
Sex, A-: Relatively low rates of adultery, premarital sex, porn; these decrease with [church] attendance
Drugs, A: Low rates, but no consistent changes with attendance. Need better data.
Youth's behavior, B: Doing well in areas of sex, drugs, and stealing. Need to watch the fighting. Could do better with everyday honesty

The picture on some topics isn't good. Wright gives Christians a C+ on "Loving behaviors," writing: "Could act more charitably to others, but this does increase with [church] attendance." And white Christians get a D on "Attitudes toward Blacks": "Um, being black is not a sin," he writes. "Gets worse with [church] attendance [you read that right, unfortunately], but improving over time [fortunately]."

Overall, Wright gives the church in America a B: "the church is doing well overall on the issues covered in this book. It's not excellent, because many things could be improved, but it's not average or worse, because in many ways the church is doing quite well."

Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites... is well researched, smartly written, and a good book for pastors to read before they preach the worst news about other Christians.

Highly recommended.

Wright's book offers a fascinating glimpse of the state of different religions in America. I appreciate his careful analysis of statistics -- that gives me confidence that he has no hidden agenda -- and his clear and often humorous writing style. While not an academic myself, I am a committed Christian and a faithful member of the Roman Catholic Church. I was intrigued by the chance to get an overall view of how Christianity is doing in America, as well as a specific glimpse of how my Church is fairing. Wright's insights would be very helpful to anyone in a leadership position in one of the major religions that he analyzes. In fact, I plan on sending a copy to my bishop...

A friend of mine casually told me over lunch that "only two percent of those who attend church think Jesus is divine."

Huh? That can't possibly be right. And I challenged him on it. He said he read the statistic "somewhere believable."

This book attacks that kind of misinformation in a brilliant way. Thankful that a little sanity can be found out there.

Sociological data, charts galore, and religion. All of these components put together make me just giddy. For reasons completely unknown to me even now, I found myself in sociology classes with people that can only be described as "the granola." Discussing survey questions, statistically significance, aggregating and disaggregating data, standard deviations, and best of all, a little book called "How to Lie with Statistics." The experience left me with an affinity for picking apart statistics and a 20 year old sociology degree. The bachelor kind. That gets you hired at JCPenney, doing the same thing the high school graduate does, muttering, "I hate my life."

Filled with charts, engaging explanation, and elbow-patch college professor humor, this book sets out to debunk commonly quoted myths regarding religion, focusing on Christianity and, more specifically, Evangelical Christianity.

Statistics are fascinating things. People tend to believe them when quoted. A few things to keep in mind when seeing a statistic. What is the thesis question, who is gathering the data and for what purpose, what is the N or population for data (the smaller the study size, the less reliable the data and does it represent a fair amount of different groups), and is it statistically significant?

The author addresses, through statistics and surveys, how Christians, and more specifically, evangelical Christians, are doing in regard to Christian lifestyle. For instance, why do we hear so much bad news about Christianity? (It sells stories) Is Christianity on the Brink of Extinction? Are we losing our youth? Are evangelical Christians all poor, uneducated, southern whites? Do Christians think and do Christian things? Do Christians love others? What do non-Christians think of us? What do Christians think of themselves? The author is not attempting to attribute causality but simply report the differences between groups with available statistical data.

I loved it. I really, really did. It was fascinating and read very much like a college lecture series. In order to keep the book spicy, the author included a photo of "the future"; a sullen teenager with disco shirt open to his belly button and gold chains (slightly exaggerating) and big disco hair. In 1980, this was the future. In 2010, he's the author of a book describing statistical data in terms anybody can understand. He gave up the disco shirt, I hope.

The book is easy to read. The graphs are self-explanatory but the commentary is nothing less than engaging. For instance, the author discusses sexual behavior and extramarital sex. He says, "At this point, allow me to interject that there is a crucial distinction between extramarital sex and extra marital sex. One is committing adultery, the other represents a better than average week, and they have very different consequences."

Regarding drug use: "What does this mean? Well, the white powder on the church pew is probably just baby formula."

The book is riddled with this kind of humor and it tickles my funny bone. Because I am a nerd. I know it. I embrace it.

My one complaint is definitions. I happen to be a member of a church the author did not define as necessarily Christian, and this niggled me throughout the book. Not until page 224 does the author explain that he used the word "Christian" to describe Protestants and Catholics. This leaves out the members of a 14 million strong religion, mostly found in Utah, called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. These members were clumped together with Jehovah's Witnesses (who, although I know little about the religion, probably claim Christianity, as well) Muslims, Jewish, and Hindus.

Is it statistically significant to leave out these people? No. It would increase the number of Christians by just under 2%. It simply matters to me, a Mormon and a devoted follower of Jesus Christ.

But before I could properly get my panties all in a wad, I had to admit that even using statistics regarding Mormons was validating. So the half star I planned taking off from my review for my own tantrum, I will grudgingly return half of the half back.

Completely enjoyable read. Easy to understand charts and statistics, not dry at all. Funny and a little sad. The man spent his 47th birthday working on his book. A far cry from the scowling, disco-shirt-too-cool-to-care attitude.

For a book filled with sociological data, statistics, and charts on nearly every other page, I found this book to be surprisingly engrossing. To be sure, this book is by no means an easy read, and requires a certain amount of intellect to understand the plethora of data that Wright provides on every conceivable topic related to the image of Christianity - whether it be from the perspective of Christians or non-Christians.
Wright also uses the book to teach the reader not only the correct data about many of the misconceptions of the image of Christianity, but also how to respond to the blind faith that many have when quoting others' seemingly statistically-based beliefs. He gives examples of this in conversation and how to enlighten others all throughout the book. He describes how many people, when addressing topics in Christianity, will use embellished or misinterpreted statistics to draw attention to themselves as an author or preacher just like the fear-mongering of the news on television or newspaper. He also discusses how the power of personal prejudices and stereotypes can override the blatant evidence to the contrary for many people.
Without getting into all of the detailed statistical findings that Wright reveals, I can easily say that most claims about the image of Christianity are exaggerated or completely false. But don't take my word for it - read it for yourself.

Frankly, my expectations were not high when I picked up this book. The title may be eye-catching, but for that reason it doesn't inspire confidence that there's serious writing between the covers.

There is, however, and serious research, too. Bradley Wright is a sociologist, a professor at the University of Connecticut. His words are aimed at the layman, not the academic, and he writes with a nice sense of humor; even so, the array of facts and graphs and studies is dizzying.

Why are we so quick to believe bad news, and to propagate it? Bad news titillates, and what titillates, sells. Bad news also frightens, and that sells, too.

Wright tackles several areas in which both the secular and the Christian world have been flagellating the church:

* Is American Christianity on the brink of extinction?
* Are we losing our young people?
* Are Evangelicals all poor, uneducated, southern whites?
* Do Christians think and do Christian things?
* Have Christians gone wild?
* Do Christians love others?
* What do non-Christians think of us?

As you might expect from the book's title, Wright's studies reveal that on nearly all these fronts the news is much better than we have been led to believe, and gets better still with increasing frequency of church attendance. Contrary to what bombards us almost daily from the media, when you look at well-ordered studies, Christians are doing significantly better than average with respect to personal habits, the strength of our marriages, charitable behavior, and the character of our children. We are reasonably orthodox in our beliefs. Young people are not leaving the church in droves, even though many continue to follow the age-old pattern of sloughing off as they gain their independence and returning to the church when they start families of their own. We are a diverse lot, and on the whole are better thought of by others than we think we are.

The bad news? We still have a long way to go with respect to the second of the greatest commandments: loving our neighbors. We're measurably prone to forgetting that the second part of "hate the sin, but love the sinner" is as important as the first.

We're also far too gullible, believing anything that's written down, that comes from a "study," that throws around statistics, or that is said by a popular Christian leader. What's more, we worry too much about what others think of us, which causes us to circle the wagons, further weakening our attention to the neighbors it is our job to love.

Ever the professor, Wright gives the Church an overall grade of B. Not what we'd hope for, not what we should settle for, but more than enough reason to work diligently rather than drop out in despair.

Wright enjoins us not to fear statistics, and not to trust them if they don't jibe with our experiences, especially if we have reason to doubt the motives or biases of the person citing them. "Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites..." is not light reading, but a solid weapon for the arsenal of those who hope to counter fear-mongering and hand-wringing with knowledge and intelligence.

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...and Other Lies You've Been Told

My Rating (5.0/5.0)

I was very impressed with the statistical analysis that Mr. Wright put into this concise volume. I think he did an outstanding job of proving his thesis that much of what we hear and read from groups like Barna and others can be misleading. He did state at the end that a lot depends on the methods that go into the polling data. Barna seems to use definitions that are very narrowly defined, whereas Wright takes general survey data that seems to use larger sample sizes. I would say that the data sets that Wright utilizes are probably more accurate given the reputation of groups like the Pew Forum group among others.

It was nice to hear some good news about the state of the church instead of all bad news. I will definitely take his advice and be more skeptical of statistics I hear, especially when they portray the condition of the church with the attitude of "the sky is falling".

I did think the grade sheet at the end was a little bit contrived, but I did appreciate having a summary of the entire book on two pages.

I would definitely recommend this book to others.

Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers.

Okay, I got an A in my Intro to Statistics class in college, but I've never been a big fan of anything that looks like math. But the title caught my eye, and the reviews I read made me buy the book. I read this book a lot faster than I'd expected. It was fascinating to see Wright dismantle a lot of commonly-held beliefs about how Christianity is going to hell in a handbasket. He is upfront about the fact that he identifies as an Evangelical, so he's not entirely disinterested in the results, but he also explains how to question statistics and come to your own conclusions. More than that, he cites his sources clearly, so anyone can see where his statistics came from--and presumably duplicate the experiment to get the same results.

He doesn't go easy on Christians, either. Though there are a lot of areas where the statistics show we are doing well, there are other areas with disappointing results. Wright points out that loving others is what Christianity is about, and his data show that Evangelicals in particular have a hard time loving people who aren't like us. It's a definitely problem in the church, and he doesn't brush that under the rug.

The writing style is concise, informative, but just a little playful. The graphs are clearly presented. And his footnote joke about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy won me over entirely.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I also happen to be fairly well versed in statistics and number crunching. Reading this book was a fun exercise in applying my number crunching skills to better understanding the state of Christianity in America today. Regardless of my own interests and background, the intended audience is not number crunchers at all, but anyone with an interest in how the Christian Church is really doing these days.

I was very interested in what Wright had to say about the religiously unaffiliated people in America today. Who are the folks who choose not to affiliate with any particular religion? What do they think about God? What do they think about Christians? Wright takes on these questions and shares data from enough studies to form a pretty good picture of the unaffiliated group. He demonstrates that they are not all agnostics and atheists. It's fascinating stuff!

I was also challenged by what Wright had to share about how Christians are doing when it comes to loving others. As Christians, we are challenged to love everyone, even those who we disagree with about church, politics, or family issues. He paints a broad picture about how Christians are doing, but I found it easy to personalize the questions and think about how I am doing in these areas. So there's even some food for personal growth here.

Thanks, Dr. Wright, for this terrific book. My favorite line appears in the last chapter of the book: "With statistics, we should be everything we shouldn't be with people - cranky, skeptical, and critical." I agree!