Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday .

Evangelical Lying

You've probably heard it by now. Henry Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention has been telling some whoppers. The National Baptist Convention denomination turns out to not have 33,000 churches and eight million members after all. It is more like 3,700 churches and less than a million members. A bit of exaggeration there, Henry.

I suppose one might argue such number stretching was all done for the kingdom's sake, of course. Henry's sake too. He is currently facing criminal investigation for accepting commissions as high as 75% from businesses trying to reach his denomination's members in marketing schemes for long distance telephone service, credit cards, and funeral services. When the story breaks we'll all be embarrassed that he is one of us, and we'll scold all denominational leaders who stretch the truth for financial or political purposes.

Sure, denominational leaders sometimes stretch the truth. They don't even have to tell outright lies to do it. Statistics provide a dozen ways to make bad numbers look good. We can talk about growing segments, growing elements, or worldwide growth (most denominations, faced with stagnant North American numbers and burgeoning overseas numbers, now prefer worldwide figures). It is simply putting a positive spin on the numbers. Face it, that's what Americans pay their leaders for -- boosterism, not bad news. Henry might have gotten away with his number stretching if he hadn't gotten into accepting commissions.

Get ready. Once the story breaks most ministers will loudly condemn Henry Lyons' fibs. OK, reporting numbers at a factor of eight is a little much, but the real question is what numerical beam sticks out your own eye? Local pastors sometimes lie too.

Perhaps you've heard of the church in Iowa who regularly added 50 to their attendance each week to cover those in the rest rooms? Or, about the church that consistently averaged 350 until their pastor retired and the church dropped a hundred in average attendance. The predecessor admitted he had simply looked over the crowd each Sunday and estimated the crowd at 350. The new pastor's mistake: actually counting heads. And, who can figure out how to sort out double-counting the choir in multiple services? Not me. Apparently neither can most pastors -- they count em twice. And, I suppose we've all heard the joke about the pastor who counted cars in the parking lot and multiplied by four. But, the real stories are almost as crazy. One Michigan pastor's exaggeration had become such a laughing matter to the town that they secretly dubbed him Pastor Pinocchio.

Worse, some evangelicals have even slipped so low as to kiddingly call this sort of lying, evangelistically speaking. Shame on us. This is not evangelistic. It is devilish.

So, why do evangelicals exaggerate? The simple answer is, it works. We've been taught how to create a growth climate, how to cast a vision. We know that growth breeds more growth, and stinking thinking brings decline. So we let our vision leak into our reporting. Leaders are dealers in hope. So we sell hope by announcing victory before it happens -- sort of faith-promise reporting. It seems like good leadership. Announcing growth will breed more growth. So, we take a short cut. We announce the growth before it actually happens, and presto, the (fabricated) numbers create a growth climate that produces the growth we have already announced. Exaggeration sounds like good leadership.

It might be good leadership, but it is poor Christianity. The Christian way is to let your yes be yes, and your no be no. Your 100 be 100, and your 350 be 350. Anything more comes from the evil one.

But, my answer is only the simple one. There are more complex reasons we are tempted to stretch our numbers. What are those?

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Tuesday@indwes.edu