Survey: Major Christian Leaders Largely Unknown in America
A new Barna report revealed most Americans are unfamiliar with some of the nation's leading Christian ministers, including evangelical pastor and bestselling author Rick Warren.
Warren's The Purpose Driven Life is reportedly the biggest selling non-fiction book in U.S. history, aside from the Bible. He heads one of the largest megachurches in the nation - Saddleback Community Church - and is publicized by media around the world. The survey released Monday, however, found that 72 percent of adults say they have never heard of him.
The megachurch pastor is also unknown among born again Christians with 63 percent saying they have never heard of him.
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Americans are a little more familiar with Christian psychologist James Dobson. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, hosts a radio program that reaches the largest audience of any religious personality. But 57 percent say they had never heard of him and nearly half of all born again Christians say they did not know who he was.
T.D. Jakes, one of America's best-known Pentecostal ministers, leads The Potter's House megachurch in Dallas, Texas. He was dubbed by Time magazine as America's Best Preacher and the next Billy Graham just five years ago. The Barna survey, however, showed that 68 percent of American adults have never heard of him and 55 percent of all born again Christians said the same.
All three Christian leaders were voted one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America by Time magazine in 2005.
Tim LaHaye, another influential evangelical, is co-author of the bestselling fiction series of all time – the Left Behind series. Still, 73 percent of adults say they have never heard of him along with 63 percent of born again Christians.
Joel Osteen also authored a multi-million selling hit - Your Best Life Now. Pastor of Lakewood Church, which is one of the largest and fastest-growing congregations in the country, Osteen hosts the most widely watched religious teaching program in the nation. And yet, 67 percent of the public do not know him along with 57 percent of born again adults.
The Barna report further measured an average favorable-to-unfavorable ratio of each figure. Warren had a ratio of 12 percent to 5 percent; Dobson, 27 to 8; Jakes, 22 to 4; LaHaye, 13 to 5; and Osteen, 18 to 6.
“You cannot make a difference in someone’s life if you do not have entrée in that life," said research director George Barna in his report. "In our society, even clergy compete for people’s attention and acceptance. One of the reasons that the Christian faith is struggling to retain a toehold in people’s lives is because even the highest-profile leaders of the faith community have limited resonance with the population.”
Movie stars were found as the best known figures among Americans. The survey showed that only 7 percent of adults have never heard of Denzel Washington; 4 percent for Mel Gibson and 5 percent for Rosie O'Donnell. Washington and Gibson have more positive views on them than the evangelical leaders. The largest negative impression from the public was directed toward pop artist Britney Spears.
Some of the other highest negative ratings went to political figures. President George Bush received a 50 percent unfavorable rating, former President Bill Clinton had a 32 percent negative rating and former Senator and Attorney General John Ashcroft had a 23 percent negative rating.
Among the people groups surveyed, evangelicals were found to be better informed about all five religious leaders tested and Bush and they gave higher favorability ratings to the figures. Non-evangelical born again Christians held considerably more negative views of O'Donnell, Gibson, Clinton, and newscaster Katie Couric.
The white population did not give a very favorable view to any tested figure in majority numbers. On the other hand, black adults gave high marks to Washington, Clinton and Jakes. Hispanics gave favorable ratings in a majority number to Washington only.
Other figures who had greater appeal to ethnic communities include Gibson, Spears and Osteen.
Overall, the highest percentage of people gave "very favorable" ratings to Washington (53 percent) while the lowest "very favorable" response went to Warren. Among evangelicals, the highest of such a response went to Dobson and the lowest to Spears.
The best favorability-unfavorability ratios were received by Washington (42:1), Faith Hill (14:1), and Tim McGraw (12:1).
"The survey statistics suggest that perhaps Christian individuals are more attuned to matters of culture and entertainment than to matters of faith,” said Barna. “People pay attention to what they deem important. These figures may be another indicator that millions of Christians invest more of their mental energy in cultural literacy than in biblical literacy.”
The data was based on a survey conducted in October 2006 of 1,003 adults.
