Posted by Benjamin on: 07.14.2008 /
On a thread over at the new Off the Map Live Blog entitled “Only prostitutes rank lower than evangelicals”, Jim said “Just when we find ourselves being associated with the right crowd we discover it’s for the wrong reasons”
It seems that in research done by the Barna Group back in 2002, self described “non Christians” were asked “Is your impression of people in this group generally favorable, generally unfavorable, or somewhere in-between?” The ranking that emerged went like this (H/T Christine)
- Military officers
- Ministers
- Born again Christians
- Democrats
- Real estate agents
- Movie and TV performers
- Lawyers
- Republicans
- Lesbians
- Evangelicals
- Prostitutes
On that same thread, there was some defense of prostitutes, and some defense of evangelicals (In fact, Shannon said, “It would appear that Jesus ranks you below prostitutes, not above …”)
Mike understood Shannon to be saying that some (American) prostitutes had been forced into the trade by economic hardship brought about by Bush economic policies. (It’s a bit of a lively thread =)
Which led me to these two questions:
- Is it reasonable to lay at George Bush and company’s door some of the blame for the fact that among the 2 million+ new Iraqi refugees since 2003, tens of thousands of girls and young women have been forced into prostitution in the neighboring countries to which they have fled?
- And is it reasonable, then to lay some of this blame at the door of evangelicals, who, as I remember, loudly took a great deal of credit for both of George Bush’s electoral victories?
- (Of course this leads me to further questions, like “I wonder how much good blame laying can ultimately do anyway?” and “If I’m going to do blame laying, mustn’t I ultimately end up at myself?”)
- Did the ranking suprise you at all? How?
- Do you suppose the ranking would be about the same among self described non Christians now, some 6 years later?
4 Responses to "“Prostitutes and … evangelicals”"
Comment by: joe
1I think this is a rather confused and confusing survey. Maybe it is just me, but one would have thought someone could be a Minister and a Born-again Christian and a Evangelical.
As to your questions Benjamin:
1. Yes, but I don’t think that has any relationship with the (flawed in my opinion) conclusions of this piece of work.
2. Yes. We get the leaders we deserve, so if Bush was deliberately targeting evangelicals during the elections, they hold some responsibility for the hawk-like behaviour of the administration. On the other hand, evangelical is a broad term so maybe this is too broad a conclusion to be helpful.
In general, whilst guilt can be helpful, it can also be debilitating. We are all responsible for living in a world where this stuff happens and for doing little to stop it.
The ranking doesn’t surprise me, but I don’t think it should really concern. It is a flawed piece of work. I don’t think we should take this as being indicative of anything very much.
Comment by: Jason Horton
2It’s an odd mix. Some are jobs (Military officers, Real estate agents, Movie and TV performers, Lawyers, Prostitutes), some are ways of life (Ministers, Born again Christians, Evangelicals) some are political (Democrats, Republicans) and one is even something that is a natural state of being (Lesbians). Mixing them up and ranking them is an odd pastime.
Comment by: MartinGugino
3I have the same problem as Joe. The ranking is hard to comprehend in that it ranks evangelicals second last, and “born again Christians” third. What is one to make of that?
Also, since Democrats are rated higher than Republicans, I assume that most of these “non-Christians” are Democrats rather than Republicans, it is strange that born again Christians and ministers are rated higher than their “own”political party, and for Republican non-Christians, even stranger.
Comment by: Benjamin
4Martin,
You’re right, it is all a bit wierd. I just got done watching “Burn After Reading”, and one of the things the movie brought home to me is that people don’t really make a lot of sense a lot of the time, and that’s ok. =)