Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 25, 1992 TAG: 9201250005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EXTRA 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
WHO'S IN THE TOP 10? YOU MAY BE SURPRISED
A quiz to start the column:Who would be in your list of 10 theologians or religious activists or personalities who "have been particularly influential" on your thinking about American religion?
Go ahead, write them down so you can compare them to the selections of 1,500 Protestant religious leaders polled by the Hartford Seminary's Center for Social and Religious Research.
The researchers provided a list of 65 names and allowed respondents to add others, though they said in a report in the "1991 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches" that unlisted names were cited by at least 5 percent of those polled.
If you're trying to second-guess the group, keep in mind that Southern Baptists are not included, but the national staff of the National Council of Churches is.
Groups polled included the American Baptist Churches, Assemblies of God, Baptist General Conference, Evangelical Free Church, United Church of Christ, and United Methodist Church.
Ready to be surprised? The top 10, in descending order:
Lyle Schaller, a church planning consultant, was cited by 43 percent of the respondents; Henri Nouwen, a Catholic writer on spirituality, 39 percent; Martin Marty, historian and prolific writer, 36 percent; Robert McAfee Brown, theologian, 31 percent; Billy Graham, evangelist, 29 percent; Harvey Cox, theologian, 27 percent; William Sloane Coffin, peace activist, 26 percent; Jesse Jackson, political activist, 23 percent; Allan Boesak, South African anti-apartheid leader, 22 percent; and James Dobson, writer on family issues, 20 percent.
I told you you were going to be surprised. Liberal and moderate respondents dominated the voting for the top 10 list. Only Shaller and Graham were in the top 10 among conservatives.
Some other well-known names and their places: evangelical author Charles Colson, 12th; liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, 14th; Jewish writer Harold Kushner, 35th.
Jerry Falwell ended up in 40th place, cited by 5 percent of respondents overall. He was named by 18 percent of conservatives, however, and was in 11th place among them.
The same group was asked how often they read various religious journals and secular periodicals. The resulting list was a bit more predictable that the previous one.
Topping the list was The Christian Century, a liberal Christian weekly, read by 40 percent; Newsweek, 38 percent; Time, 31 percent; Christianity Today, a conservative Christian weekly, 27 percent; and The New York Times, 26 percent.
Televangelists, all of whom were adversely affected by Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert scandals of years past, now have new cause for concern as the Texas attorney general begins an investigation of Robert Tilton.
Tilton, whose "Success 'N Life" program is among the highest rated religious shows in the country, came under fire in an ABC documentary program late last year. The producers concluded that prayer requests mailed to Tilton were never in his possession, nor did he give much if any money to Haitian orphanages he claimed to support.
The Texas investigation is based on the attorney general's contention that Tilton has violated the state's consumer-protection and deceptive-trade-practices statutes.
Donald Wildmon's American Family Association is distributing the results of a study it commissioned that analyzed more than 100 episodes of prime-time television for religious content and references.
The researchers - professors from the University of Dayton, Northwestern University and Duke University - examined programs in November 1990 on the ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox networks.
Of the 1,462 speaking characters, only 81 - less than 6 percent - had any discernable religious affiliation, the researchers said. Of those, 51 were Catholics, 21 Protestants, five were members of undefined cults, and three were described as New Agers.
The researchers concluded that just over 50 percent of the 115 "religious and spiritual behaviors" they observed were "clearly negative portrayals."
Concluded researcher Thomas Skill, "The extremely small number of significantly religious or spiritual behaviors on network television suggest that the religious or spiritual dimensions of people's lives are mostly invisible," at least in the eyes of those who are producing the shows.
He goes on: "In the final analysis, the issue that is most central to the findings of this investigation is this: Television's treatment of religion tends to be best characterized as abuse through neglect."