50 Most Influential Christians
The good and wise folks who frequent The Thinklings are, by and large, put off by The Church Report's list of The 50 Most Influential Christians in America.
I don't understand most of their objections. It might be different if the list was titled "The 50 BEST Christians" or "The 50 Most THEOLOGICALLY CORRECT Christians" (sidenote: isn't it a shame that "theologically correct" would ever be an appropriate adjectival modifier for "Christian"?) or "The 50 Most EVANGELICAL Christians" (same sidenote applies) or even "The 50 BEST LOOKING Christians." One of the commenters felt that the list was deficient from a "truth-in-labeling" perspective, but in my estimation, it's spot on. It is what it says it is.
Look. We can argue until the cows come home about the meaninglessness of book sales or church membership numbers or crusade headcount or TV audience size or days per year on the lecture circuit but when it comes right down to it, all of those things are legitimate measurements of the potential for influencing people. Doesn't mean that the influence is good or bad, doctrinally correct or flawed. It simply means that these folks are being heard and seen and thus are influencing more people in our nation than anyone else you or I know personally, regardless of how saint-like our personal "heros of the faith" may be.
Of course, it may well be that the only reason the list was compiled to begin with is to generate some discussion. If so...mission accomplished!
Well, for that matter, why wasn't Mel included on this list?
Posted by: Eric at January 18, 2006 09:01 AMAm I the only person who finds it odd that the POPE (!!!) is down at number 44 - the highest ranking catholic. Surely there's some sort of anti-Catholic bias in the rankings. AFter all, who is Paula White?
Posted by: bryan at January 18, 2006 09:56 AMI also find this laughable:
As with all types of lists, there are those who are not on the list – not because they weren’t deserving – but simply because we did not have enough space to publish a list of the 100 most influential.
That's from the first paragraph ... on their web site! That 20 MB hard drive running out of storage space, folks? Posted by: bryan at January 18, 2006 09:58 AM
Bryan, I'm willing to take a stab at the relatively low ranking of the Pope. The list was the result of input from readers of The Church Report ("The magazine for church business administrators and para-church executives"). I suspect that most of that population are from Protestant denominations. Whether that translates to an "anti-Catholic bias" I'm not willing to speculate, but I suspect that people voted for those who were most influential to them. Given that, I would have been surprised if the Pope had ranked higher.
Regarding the space issue, I know you're being tongue-in-cheek, but I figure this list is simply an adaptation of its printed counterpart, and the magazine probably did have a space limit (although it seems that one could always squeeze in a simple text list of "The Next 50").
Posted by: Eric at January 18, 2006 11:04 AMDon't get caught-up in the celebrity status trap: in actuality, the most influential Christians in the USA are those dads and moms who faithfully bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Posted by: John Owen Butler at January 18, 2006 11:36 AMAgreed, John, but how do you decide on just 50 of them? ;-)
Posted by: Eric at January 18, 2006 12:04 PMI didn't read the article and probably won't, though I suspect I could name at least 25 of the people on the list without looking. Which supports your conclusion that the list "is what it says it is."
And as for the 50 best looking Christians, Mel would not make that list. He's just not my type.
Posted by: Jim at January 18, 2006 07:10 PMYeah, you seem to be more the Jim Caviezel type. ;-)
Posted by: Eric at January 18, 2006 09:03 PMBryan, we have plenty of disk space, but a listing of 100 people would be a bit dry to read and judgin by your blog alone, could cause a riot....but if I run out of disk space or money I will now know who to get in touch with.
Denise, Mel was #2 last year.
As with all lists of any kind, they are the subject to the opinions of the respondents.
Thanks for reading,
Jason T. Christy
CEO,Christy Media, publishers of The Church Report and the CR Daily
Jason, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to leave a comment. And never forget the first rule of blogging: anything worth critiquing is worth over-critiquing! ;-)
Posted by: Eric at January 23, 2006 03:18 PMAbout the publisher
Random Abbye photos...
Angry Clouds
I am Curious Llama
Ganglia & Brain Cloud
Cabeza del Diablo
Aurora Moreorless
Be careful Who you plagiarize
Coming Attractions
All Thorns, All the Time
Hitchin' a Ride
"...the flower fades..."
Finding meaning in random events
Random Thursday: The Thanksgiving Edition
A Matter of Perception
Reason #21 to wear shoes in West Texas
The Neighborhood:
West Texas Blogs:
[Midland unless otherwise indicated]
Other Texas Blogs:
The Business:
The Church:
The World:
Interesting. Some of those people I've never heard of and some of them I didn't even know were Christians, but then I don't get out much.
50 Best Looking Christians
Posted by: Denise at January 17, 2006 11:36 PM#1. Mel Gibson
;-)