In general, pastors are less informed about the culture in which they live than are the people in their churches.
Research results being released for the first time in the November/December edition of Facts & Trends magazine show just how informed Protestant ministers and laity are about today’s culture: books, music, sports, celebrities, television programs, politics, magazines, radio and TV talk shows, movies, the Internet, video and computer games, and clothing and fashion.
Facts & Trends is published bimonthly by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Two studies were conducted for Facts & Trends by Ellison Research in Phoenix. One is a representative sample of 797 Protestant church ministers nationwide, and the other is a companion survey of 1,184 adults who attend Protestant churches at least once a month. The studies asked each group to rate how informed they are about 12 different elements of today’s popular culture: very informed, somewhat informed, not very informed, or they actively avoid it. Not one of the 12 cultural elements show a majority of clergy or laity claiming to be very informed about culture. Pastors and churchgoers often are relatively uninformed about cultural influences.
Informed by areas of interest
The area of today’s culture that ministers tend to stay most informed about is politics, with 36 percent saying they are very informed about politics, and another 55 percent claiming to be somewhat informed on the subject. This is the only one of the 12 areas included in the study about which ministers actually feel better informed than the laity – 29 percent of all churchgoers feel very informed about politics, and another 47 percent feel somewhat informed about it.
In the area of sports, pastors and laity feel about equally informed. Twenty-four percent of clergy feel very informed about sports in today’s culture, and another 44 percent are somewhat informed, with laity providing answers that are very similar.
On each of the other 10 topics, laity feel significantly more informed about the culture surrounding them than do ministers. Twenty percent of ministers feel very informed about the Internet, compared to 43 percent of laity. Nineteen percent of ministers feel very informed about what’s on television today, compared to 31 percent of laity. Eighteen percent are very informed about books, compared to 27 percent of laity, and 16 percent are very informed about movies today, compared to 24 percent of laity.
Feeling out of touch
Pastors rarely feel very informed about the other culture topics on the list: radio and TV talk shows (12 percent, compared to 20 percent among laity), music (11 percent, versus 28 percent among laity), magazines (11 percent, compared to 17 percent among laity), clothing and fashion (7 percent, compared to 16 percent among laity), video and computer games (5 percent, compared to 16 percent among laity), and celebrities (4 percent, versus 10 percent among laity).
The areas where the greatest gaps exist between pastors and laity are in video and computer games, fashion, and celebrities. Fifty-nine percent of ministers are uninformed about fashion, compared to 37 percent of the people in the pews. Sixty-nine percent know next to nothing about celebrities, while this is true of 49 percent of their congregants. And 71 percent are uninformed about video and computer games, while 49 percent of their congregants know next to nothing on this subject.
Among ministers, there are not dramatic differences in the findings by theology or denominational group. Most differences among denominational groups (Methodists, Baptists, etc.) are minor. In general, mainline ministers tend to feel slightly more informed about books and movies than do evangelical pastors.
Informed generations
There are some differences according to age, however. Younger ministers (under age 45) feel more informed about sports, the Internet, music, clothing and fashion, celebrities, and video and computer games than do older pastors. However, this is also true among the people attending their churches – younger people feel much more informed about these areas than do older laypeople.
Among the laity, how informed they are about the culture around them does not vary significantly according to how long people have attended their current church, whether they are involved in a mainline or evangelical church, how often they attend it, or whether they are in a volunteer leadership position within the church.
Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research, pointed out that this research raises the question of whether churches are having an impact on how people interact with culture.
“There’s a long-term debate within Christendom about what is an appropriate level of involvement in popular culture. Some Christians believe separation from the world is part of godly behavior, while others believe involvement in the world is necessary in order to reach out to the world,” Sellers observed. “Either way, one might logically expect church involvement to change how a person looks at culture – either becoming more involved in order to have more effective outreach, or becoming less involved as they seek to lead a less worldly lifestyle.
“But the data shows no difference in cultural awareness according to how frequently people attend church, how long they’ve been there, or whether they are in a leadership position,” he said. “This raises the question of how much churches actually impact how people live their daily lives.”
Sellers also noted that one criticism people often have about churches is that they are out of touch with the world around them.
“The data shows ministers are, generally speaking, not all that informed about the culture in which they seek to minister. The people in the pews feel much more informed about the Internet, movies, video games, and other expressions of popular culture than do their pastors. People are definitely impacted by the culture they consume – the websites they visit or the music they listen to, for instance. Pastors need to be informed about what’s out there in order to understand how the culture is influencing the people they are trying to reach,” Sellers said.
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