Christianity Today Church Stereotypes, According to Google What millions and millions of searches reveal about Internet users' perceptions. Kate Shellnutt [ posted 10/17/2013
For some of the most brutally honest Christian stereotypes, head straight to Google. The search engine relies on an algorithm to suggest popular queries for _nearly_ (http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/08/words_banned_from_bing_and_google_s_autocomplete_algorithms.html) everything, so when users type questions about churches or denominations, Google's autocomplete feature fills in the rest. Blogger Brian LePort _shared_ (http://fa.com/2013/07/14/how-other-people-stereotype-your-denomination/) a list of Google's denominational stereotypes on his site, Near Emmaus. Here are some we found: Starting with A, we see a range of opinions on Anglicans. In the results for Calvinists, searchers find John Piper _directly addresses_ (http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/ask-pastor-john/why-are-calvinists-so-negative) their negativity in a post on Desiring God: The intellectual appeal of the system of Calvinism draws a certain kind of intellectual person [who]... has a greater danger of being hostile, gruff, abrupt, insensitive or intellectualistic. That first query shows the power of the Colbert Nation. More than five years ago, Stephen Colbert declared _Lutherans_ (http://wikiality.wikia.com/Lutherans) on notice for being "Popeless Catholics," only to forgive them for the sake of Jane Fonda. It still comes up as Lutherans' top search. This nickname "the frozen chosen," referring to the traditional worship style and belief in predestination in some Presbyterian churches, apparently hasn't gone away. Autofill designates a few evangelical groups as cults; these searches mostly generate posts from former members of such churches. Check out our own coverage of _Assemblies of God_ (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/topics/a/assemblies-of-god/) and _Calvary Chapel_ (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/topics/c/calvary-chapel/) . We can thank some of the 1.2 billion Catholics around the world for that last result. Oh, and there's one word that comes up a lot… Can't people at least spell judgmental correctly? (Or is that too judgmental of us?) -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
