Ann Coulter Strikes Again

Ann Coulter gave an interview to Danny Deutsch on The Big Idea in which she asserts that Jews need to become perfected and thus become Christians. No, I am not making this up, you can read all about it here at Media Matters for America and watch the video too.

Now normally I would just blow this off as more of Ann's vile spewing, but it comes on the heels of this report from Barna Group, which does research for evangelical Christian organizations. The report is important as it details the issues young people are having with Christianity as it is presented today. The researchers are taking this very seriously as young born again Christians are expressing concerns as well:

David Kinnaman, who is a 12-year-veteran of the Barna team, pointed out some of the unexpected findings of the research. "Going into this three-year project, I assumed that people’s perceptions were generally soft, based on misinformation, and would gradually morph into more traditional views. But then, as we probed why young people had come to such conclusions, I was surprised how much their perceptions were rooted in specific stories and personal interactions with Christians and in churches. When they labeled Christians as judgmental this was not merely spiritual defensiveness. It was frequently the result of truly ‘unChristian’ experiences. We discovered that the descriptions that young people offered of Christianity were more thoughtful, nuanced, and experiential than expected."

There is a shift occurring in religious allegiance these days, which Barna Group acknowledges:

One reason that Christianity’s image is changing is due to the shifting faith allegiances of Americans. Simply put, each new generation has a larger share of people who are not Christians (that is, atheists, agnostics, people associated with another faith, or those who have essentially no faith orientation). The new book refers to this group as "outsiders" because they are describing what Christianity looks like from an outsider’s perspective. Among adults over the age of 40, only about one-quarter qualify as outsiders, while among the 16 to 29 segment, two-fifths are outsiders. This represents a significant migration away from the dominant role that Christianity has had in America.

This clearly has implications for the future of Christianity in this country. Its adherents must revisit how they present themselves and their faith if they expect to have relevance, let alone moral authority. One of the issues raised in the research was the perception that Christianity has become too intertwined in the political realm in this country. Bad news for the Religious Right that sees itself as restoring God to government, based on their myth that America was founded as a Christian nation.

Ann Coulter, reveling in her bigotry and myopia, distorts the truth of what Christianity is and feeds the negative perceptions that are informing non-Christians' view of the religion. I don't want to see a theocracy in America, but neither do I want to see Christianity diminished to the margins by the antics of believers like her. Someone should send the Barna Group's research to her, along with a strong cup of coffee. Hopefully she'll wake up.