Church attendance is plummeting. The youth are abandoning their Evangelical heritage in droves. The church has become too feminized and men are leaving the church. Evangelicals behave no differently than the rest of the culture.
You've no doubt read similar headlines in recent years but are they true? Enter Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...and Other Lies You've Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media by sociologist Bradley Wright of the University of Connecticut. Using the most reliable data sources, Wright takes us on a insightful journey through the statistical data that addresses these issues. He exposes the all too frequent statistical malpractice of the press and the misrepresentations by stalwart Evangelical advisers like Josh McDowell and the Barna Group. The actual shape of the evangelical world is frequently far different than the pundits portray.
The book is written in accessible conversational language with charts and graphs to highlight key points. You won't get lost in a lot of technical sociological and statistical minutia, but the book will give you enough insight that you can critically assess the claims made in daily headlines. While the book is targeted toward understanding the shape of the Evangelical world, it touches on other Christian traditions as well. Anyone interested in Christianity in general will benefit from the analysis.
This book is a real treasure. I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to get beyond punditry and fear-based marketing campaigns to the real nature of religion in the United States.
