Through A Glass Darkly

I am going to be posting several times on a relatively new book entitled, UNchristian written by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Kinnaman is current president of the Barna Group, the massive Christian research organization founded by George Barna. Gabe served as the vice president of John Maxwell’s INJOY ministries in Atlanta, GA and has now started his own non-profit organization called the Fermi Project which seeks to bring together church and society leaders and social entrepreneurs and innovators in order to make a positive impact on culture. They have come together after three years of thorough research and interviewing of mainly 16-29 year olds to try to determine what this generation “really thinks about Christianity…and why it matters.” I saw this book about 4 months ago in our local bookstore and picked it up and put it down quickly without much interest in the topic. I come to these posts with a bit of a bias. I usually don’t like this kind of thing. I think that we obviously need to be wise and sensitive to those around us and how they percieve us but to write a whole book on it and criticize the Church for how the world percieves us…come on! Sure, there will always be imperfections in the Church and sure that will always be an excuse for people not to consider the real claims of the Church, but really, is that something to spend 3 years “researching” and “interviewing” and then publishing so we could all feel real guilty that our neighbor might think that we are homo-phobs? Anyway, I really am trying to become more sensitive to some things and grow in some areas in my own walk, so I thought I would give the book a try and see…and the three of you who may read these thoughts get to “hear” what I have to say about it. Caveat: just because I got the book in an attempt to be sensitive doesn’t mean that I will be. I really don’t have the desire to be real colorful with all this, it is really just a way for me to express my thoughts on the “page” and grow in my own abilities to express my thoughts. I have added an interview that CNN did with Gabe on the book. Take a look.