One Such as Thee, Ned Flanders...

Today on American college and high school campuses, the name most associated with the word Christian—other than Jesus—is not the Pope or Mother Teresa or even Billy Graham. Instead, it's a goofy-looking guy named Ned Flanders on the animated sitcom known as The Simpsons. The mustache, thick glasses, green sweater, and irrepressibly cheerful demeanor of Ned Flanders, Homer Simpson's next-door neighbor, have made him an indelible figure, the evangelical known most intimately to nonevangelicals.

A 1999 survey conducted by Roper Starch Worldwide found that 91 percent of American children between the ages of 10 and 17 could identify members of the Simpson family; 84 percent of adults could identify them. In each case, this was a greater percentage of children and adults than could identify then-Vice President Al Gore. Many evangelicals would have no difficulty in recognizing Ned and his family as their own. Gerry Bowler, professor of philosophy at Canadian Nazarene College in Calgary and chairman of the Center for the Study of Christianity and Contemporary Values, calls Flanders "television's most effective exponent of a Christian life well-lived."
- Mark Pinsky, Christianity Today