A very interesting subject to bring up. However I wonder whether we should be overly concerned about the way Christianity is perceived by the general public?

John the Baptizer’s spartan lifestyle was misunderstood by some people as the result of him having a demon, but that did not prompt him to hire a PR man to spruce up his image! And yet the masses still flocked to hear him preach and to get baptised.

Jesus was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton, of having a demon, of being a Samaritan, and of being out of his mind, but the Gospels do not record that he strove to put the record straight. Instead he just seemed to get on with his mission of preaching the gospel, teaching his disciples, and performing signs, while trusting his Father to draw chosen people to him despite the adverse propaganda.

The early church was accused of cannibalism, incest, and atheism because some of their innocent practices were misconstrued. I’m not a historian of the early church but I don’t ever recall hearing that they were at pains to explain to outsiders that the Eucharist was not literal ingestion of human flesh & blood, or that loving the brethren did not mean sexual relations with one’s physical family, etc.

Even without the fall-out resulting from Gregory Paul’s paper, I think the church in the UK today is generally not regarded very highly. It’s not so much that it is despised as being morally bad or doctrinally wrong, but rather it is regarded with a mixture of amusement and apathy as a quaint institution that is irrelevant to real life. And yet I keep hearing about individuals who seem to be spiritually hungry and who feel the church (yes, even evangelical churches!) might give them what they’re looking for.