Pat Robertson, the televangelist who launched the Christian Broadcasting Network and who became nationally known for his comments about God’s judgement, died today (June 8, 2023) at age 93.

The announcement of his death has been greeted with substantial emotion, both among supporters and detractors. Twitter and the comments sections on news stories are full of those who offer gratitude for his stand and prayers for his entrance into heaven as well as those who decry his comments and suggest that he is an excellent candidate for the hell he preached out to others.

These reactions to Robertson’s death drive home a fairly self-evident point: the United States today is segmented. People have strong notions of who is part of their in-group. Those within that group are protected and praised. Those outside of it are treated with suspicion (at best) and vitriolic anger (at worst).

These in-groups and out-groups are especially evident around religion. In March 2023, the Pew Research Institute published a report that surveyed 11,000 Americans as to how positively they viewed religious groups. The results were startling, if not unexpected. When controlling for the group the participant identified with (Catholics could not answer about Catholics, Jews could not answer about Jews, Atheists could not answer about Atheists etc.), Pew found showed an interesting pattern in which groups disliked each other.

The following table shows the percentage of each group (listed along the left of the table) and their views of the other groups (listed along the top of the table). If a majority of people in the group being surveyed had a positive view of the group on the top, the number is shown in tan. If the majority had a negative view, the number is shown in blue.

The tweets and comments about the life and legacy of Pat Robertson simply demonstrate this. People huddle in their various groups, shields raised, and lob their spears at one another by either beatifying or vilifying Robertson. Each stands firm in its convictions.

From the perspective of Christian evangelism, there is one clear and deeply concerning pattern from this table: Christians and religiously unaffiliated people do not like each other. There are at least two major problems with this.

• The fact that religiously unaffiliated people do not like Evangelical Protestants, Catholics, or Mainline Protestants suggests that none of these groups is doing a good job of building relationships with those who are not part of their existing in-groups. The result is that the religiously unaffiliated are left to draw conclusions about Christians based on assumptions and observations that may not reflect what the Christians actually believe or how they actually behave. Of course, Jesus did make it clear that the his disciples would not be welcomed by others, so the fact that those outside the church do not care for Christians does not necessarily prove something is wrong. However, the next point does.
• They fact that all the Christian groups have such a negative view of at least Atheists, suggests that Christians are failing their number one assignment from Jesus: to love. Christians, along with other theists, may have good reason to disagree with or even dislike Atheism as a belief, but holding negative views of the adherents of another belief is quite another thing. For a people who claim that the second greatest commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself,” having such negative views of others because they believe differently is nothing short of disobedience to God.

If Christians are this negative about those who are outside the Christian faith, how will they evangelize them? No wonder evangelism is often just taught as a technique or an impersonal transaction: Christians can practice it without ever having to challenge their stereotypes or negativity toward others. This only hardens the negative views of Christians and those outside the church alike.

What is the solution? When Jesus was asked who our neighbor is, he told the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is a parable of someone who saw the genuine needs of another person who was not part of his in-group, indeed someone who was despised by his in-group, and still met those needs by sacrificing his own time and money. Here is the example for Christians. If we want to evangelize well, we need to start by demonstrating the same love that our message proclaims. This means being willing to interrupt our business and budgets to meet the needs of those who are not part of our religious in-group. Frankly, it means to stop operating as if there were social in-groups altogether so we can just be neighbors to everyone.

If you want some practical ideas for how to do this, check out my latest book. There is a free set of scorecards for Christians to hold themselves accountable for helping other people.