When it comes to exploring what Americans think about Jesus, a new study offers Christian leaders both good news and bad news.
The good news is that 76% of Americans affirm the "historical existence" of "Jesus of Nazareth," although it's also interesting to note that if 89% of self-identified Christians embraced that statement, the implication is that 11% are not sure.
Meanwhile, 84% of participants in a new "Jesus in America" study -- conducted by the global Ipsos research company for the Episcopal Church -- agreed that "Jesus was an important spiritual figure."
The bad news? While 50% of "not religious" Americans accepted this "important spiritual figure" language, they were much less impressed with the believers who represent Jesus.
When asked, "What characteristics do you associate with Christians in general?", the nonreligious selected these words from the poll's options -- "hypocritical" (55%), "judgmental" (54%) and "self-righteous" (50%). Next up: "arrogant," "unforgiving" and "disrespectful."
It appears that one of the goals of this poll -- with questions about racism, social justice and last year's attack on the U.S. Capitol -- was to see if nonbelievers have different attitudes about liberal and conservative Christians, said political scientist Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University, author of the new book "20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America." He is co-founder of the Religion in Public website and a contributor at GetReligion.org, which I have led since 2004.
"This is the million-dollar question," said Burge, who is also a pastor in the progressive American Baptist Church. "If non-religious people are turned off by what they see as the stricter faith of many Christians, evangelicals in particular, then wouldn't it make sense for them to seek more flexible alternatives?
"If there's all kinds of room in mainline Protestant churches these days, and that's putting it mildly, then why aren't these kinds of people filling up some of those pews?"