Guess What: Heathens Don't Like Paris and Britney Either
The Barna Group are always good for some insights into American culture, and their latest report is no exception. In a recent study, American adults were asked to rate a variety of religious and secular figures with regard to favorable and unfavorable impressions. Unsurprisingly, "born agains" rated evangelical figures more favorably than their secular counterparts (most of whom had never heard of people like Rick Warren, Bill Hybels and James Dobson).But what was most interesting about this report--to me anyway--is that Christians and secular adults had virtually identical favorable/unfavorable ratings for Britney Spears and Paris Hilton:
My take from that is that maybe America's values aren't in the cesspool the way that evangelicals so often say. If believers' attitudes about two symbols of the wanton culture of celebrity excess are indistinguishable from the rest of America--both distinctly to the negative--then that provides support neither to evangelicals claims about how depraved American culture is nor to their own claims of cultural distinctiveness.
posted by Zeke @ 9:16 AM
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