In everyday life, Christians often carry a deeply negative public image. That is true for many people without faith, and honestly, it is true for me as well.
What people think of Christians
The book unChristian captures this problem with unusual bluntness. One outsider from Mississippi described Christianity as something swollen with blind followers, more interested in repeating slogans than showing real compassion, and reduced into a fear-driven machine that has lost its heart.
The same book also points to how much the reputation of Christianity has declined among younger people. Its survey data showed that many young non-Christians had lost respect for the faith: 38% said they had a bad impression of present-day Christianity, about one-third did not want to be associated with its image, and 17% said they held very bad perceptions of it. Even if the harshest critics were still a minority, their number had grown to at least three times what it was a decade earlier.
The most striking part is how consistent those perceptions were. Among young outsiders, the three most common impressions of Christianity were: anti-homosexual (91%), judgmental (87%), and hypocritical (85%). After that came a familiar list: old-fashioned, too involved in politics, out of touch with reality, insensitive, boring, intolerant of other faiths, and confusing.
That problem is not limited to the West. It exists in Chinese-speaking societies too. The proportions may differ, but the pattern is still serious.
The demographic reality behind Chinese Christianity
Official data from a 2010 religion report in mainland China gives some context.
According to that report, Christians made up about 1.8% of the national population, roughly 23.05 million people. Of these, 15.56 million were baptized, accounting for 67.5%, and 7.49 million were unbaptized, accounting for 32.5%.
The gender ratio was heavily skewed: about 69.9% were women, and 30.1% were men.
Education levels were also uneven. More than half of Chinese Christians were estimated to have only primary school education or below, at 54.6%. Those with junior high education made up 32.7%, secondary vocational or high school education 10.1%, and college education or above only 2.6%.
Age distribution showed a similarly clear pattern: more than 60% of believers were between 35 and 64 years old. Specifically, 0.6% were under 14, 3.7% were 15–24, 5.9% were 25–34, 16.1% were 35–44, 23.4% were 45–54, 24.6% were 55–64, and 25.7% were 65 or older.
From those numbers, some broad tendencies are obvious: Chinese Christianity is disproportionately older, disproportionately less educated, and disproportionately female. Under those conditions, it is not surprising that the Christian community in China can also show strong conservatism and rigidity.
But is that the whole explanation?
I do not think it is that simple.
Even younger Christians or those with relatively higher levels of education are often shaped by the same wider religious environment. In the Christian circles I encounter daily—whether on WeChat, QQ, or Telegram—discrimination against minority groups is common. This is not an isolated case. It is more like a shared atmosphere.
I can understand why this shows up in WeChat or QQ groups. I once thought Telegram groups might be different. After all, people there often have broader access to outside information and different cultures, so perhaps they would be more tolerant. That was not what I found.
On Telegram, the lack of social restraint and the stronger sense of anonymity often seem to strip away the polite surface. Some Christians reveal the darkest side of themselves there with shocking clarity.
There was no mercy in the words spoken by this so-called Christian. It also reflected another of the common criticisms people make about Christians: that they become overly involved in politics, using religious positions as political tools to resist or exclude people they dislike.
Yet the passages Christians claim to follow point in the opposite direction:
Matthew 22:37–40: “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
1 John 4:20: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”
These verses stress that Christians are supposed to treat others with love and respect, regardless of background, sexual orientation, or social position. The core of Christianity is supposed to be love and acceptance, not persecution or discrimination. Any attempt to target sexual minorities through political or social means runs against those teachings.
And this person’s statements did not stop there. In a short period of time, he made several other disturbing remarks. When someone asked whether a military chaplain assisting troops could be considered complicit in killing, he answered like this:
Christian teaching has always emphasized respect for life and the pursuit of peace. Whatever practical arguments people make about war, intentional killing is not something Christianity treats lightly. Its moral language points people toward peace, compassion, and forgiveness, not toward solving conflict through violence.
The prohibition is already clear in the Ten Commandments:
Exodus 20:13: “You shall not murder.”
And in the New Testament, the standard is made even stricter:
Matthew 5:21–22: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment...”
The Bible also teaches Christians to forgive others rather than rush to condemn them. In a spiritual sense, judgment belongs to God, not to ordinary believers. Jesus says this plainly:
Matthew 6:14: “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”
And when people tried to condemn a woman caught in adultery—a crime that in that era could lead to death—Jesus responded this way:
John 8:7–11: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” ... “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
In Jesus’ teaching, only the sinless are fit to judge. But in reality, all human beings are sinners, and the only sinless one in the story chose mercy rather than condemnation.
Then came an even more disturbing statement:
Even setting aside the rest of what he said, the phrase “if criminals count as people” is already appalling. In modern law, a criminal remains a human being no matter how serious the crime. To speak that way suggests an underlying belief that criminals are somehow less than human.
That is a morally dangerous idea. Laws vary dramatically across countries and regions. Something legal in one country may be criminalized in another. If a person is arrested and labeled a criminal under one legal system, does that suddenly make them not human?
Biblically, every person is still a creature made by God and still bears dignity.
Genesis 1:27: “So God created mankind in his own image...”
Jesus also explicitly included prisoners among those deserving care:
Matthew 25:34–36: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
What made this even more discouraging was not just one person speaking this way. It was that after so many outrageous comments, not a single Christian—or even a group administrator—stood up to argue against him or refute him. Some even treated him as a seasoned believer and asked him questions for guidance.
Why this affects my own faith in daily life
From conversations with friends, I know there are LGBTQ Christians who hesitate to make their faith public because they fear the negative assumptions attached to Christians. They worry that once people know they are Christian, they will immediately be associated with intolerance, hypocrisy, or hostility. That hesitation is understandable.
I struggle with the same thing. When I speak openly about my faith, I want to challenge those stereotypes rather than reinforce them. But the hardest part is not dealing with non-Christians.
The hardest moment is when someone says: “Oh, so you’re a Christian too? Someone in my family is Christian,” or “I know another Christian—do you want me to introduce you?”
To outsiders, Christians may seem as though they should naturally get along with one another. In reality, that is often far from true.
In person, many Christians may still restrain themselves out of politeness or social pressure. They may present a carefully controlled and respectable version of themselves. Online, however, doctrinal disagreements can quickly turn into vicious fights. Tolerance is often very thin. Christians attack one another easily, and many Christian groups become toxic for exactly that reason. Once doctrine feels challenged, all the language of love and acceptance can disappear immediately.
And all of this is before the other person even knows my sexual orientation.
If a Christian in real life learns that I am gay, they may not directly insult me to my face. But inwardly, it is hard to believe they will not feel some mixture of contempt, pity, rejection, or disgust.
A pastor once put it well in an interview: throughout more than two thousand years of church history, mistaken interpretations of the Bible have never been rare. The persecution of Galileo, the Crusades, witch burnings, and slavery all involved distorted readings of scripture. A view is not correct simply because the majority supports it.
That is the part I find hardest to ignore: the darkness in human nature so often seems to become amplified inside Christian communities instead of being confronted by them.