Name Recognition or God's Image.

HI! It's good to be back. I have been off pursuing my new hobby again .

The Barna Group published a new survey while I was gone. This one compared name recognition of several movie stars, political figures, and Christian leaders. The conclusion was that many American Christian Leaders are widely unknown, even among Christians. Evangelicals included in the list included T.D. Jakes, Tim LaHaye, James Dobson, and Rick Warren. All of them fared poorly. Perhaps Christians were more interested in Cultural literacy than in Biblical literacy, the study noted.

As always this was an interesting study. I do have some questions about methodology, however. The Barna Group serves primarily Evangelical and Born Again Christians. Nevertheless, doing a name recognition survey of Christian religious leaders that does not include the Pope, is pushing "validity" awfully hard!

Further, all the highly rated individuals are known more for their work than for their personalities. A notable exception was Britney Spears whose personal life has been rather a mess and who rated poorly. It seems to be the case that when public figures become well known for themselves it is usually because they have been washing their dirty linen in public. Most Christians I know would just as soon not see any more of that.

"For actors and artists, awareness facilitates potential sales. For ministers, awareness fosters influence on lives. A favorable image provides access to people’s minds and hearts more readily." So, concludes the survey.

This worries me. For one thing it is contrary to the plain word of Scripture which says "By their Fruits you will know them," not by their image. For another, name recognition is not one of the fruits of the Spirit. Why do we put our Pastors' names on the bulletin boards outside our Churches?