Poor and Uneducated?

If you see Christians wearing a button reading "Poor, Uneducated, and Easy to Command," that doesn't mean they're suffering from an inferiority complex. It means they're making a statement. In some circles, the buttons have become a way of poking fun at a recent Washington Post article criticizing Christian activists. It all started when President Clinton announced his plan to open the military to gays. Thousands of Christians called the White House to protest. But Michael Weisskopf, a Post reporter, dismissed their concerns with a sneer—saying that, after all, conservative Christians are "poor, uneducated, and easy to command." Immediately Christians got on their phones again. And the outraged calls the Post received for that one topped the number that had come into the White House in the first place! But it's one thing to get mad. It's another to have solid facts at our disposal. Is it true that Christians are poor and uneducated? To answer that question, the Christian Coalition ran a poll of about 1,500 voters. Forty percent of those responding identified themselves as white evangelicals, Protestants, or Catholics who attend church at least twice monthly. Of these, 65 percent work in white-collar or managerial occupations; 66 percent have had at least some college education; 40 percent have annual incomes over $50,000. These numbers are impressive. Well over half of committed Christians are in white-collar professions. Well over half have been to college. These are not backwoods hillbillies on the margins of society. They are thinking, intelligent people and they're in the mainstream. My guess is that this is what really worries secular journalists: that intelligent, well-educated people are still accepting the Bible. But I'm not surprised. After all, Christianity offers better answers for life's questions than any other religion or philosophy—and intelligent people can see that. Can anyone honestly look around at this complex universe and believe it all came about by chance? Can anyone watch a bird fly and believe life arose from a soup of chemicals? That defies the most basic common sense. And you can't get around it by saying, as some scientists do, that the universe was predetermined to evolve the way it did by natural law. That merely pushes the question back a step: Where did such incredible laws come from, capable of constructing a complex universe? Then there's the historical evidence for Christianity. Can anyone honestly look at the facts surrounding Jesus' resurrection and believe it was all a hoax perpetrated by the disciples? Impossible. These men lost their lives for the sake of their message, and men will never die for something they know is phony. In every subject, Christianity offers a more reasonable explanation. And that's why even in today's world intelligent, well-educated people are drawn to biblical faith. The Washington Post article is not the last time you'll hear the negative stereotype of illiterate Christians. So keep these statistics at your fingertips. The numbers show that Christians are just as well educated and reasonable as our neighbors. And we have a message that can stand up to any reasonable question.

05/14/93