Revealing further evidence that American churches are sinking deeper into apostasy, a new nationwide survey by The Barna Group discovered that almost 23% of U.S. churches are now using Papyrus typeface in their logos and church bulletins.
According to Barna’s polling data acquired by a random sampling of churches around the country: 57% of American churches continue to use the traditional Times Roman typeface, while 23% have succumbed to Papyrus, 15% have abandoned written language altogether and only communicate with YouTube videos, and the remaining 5% use Old English font because “that’s what King James used.”
“I think it’s safe to say that the Apocalypse is very, very near,” said Bob Vincent, spokesman for The Barna Group. “We thought things were bad when our past research showed that a large number of professing Christians didn’t believe in Jesus, but this insidious Papyrus lettering fad is clearly a sign of the end times.”
Created in 1982 by Chris Costello, Papyrus is a typeface that “merges traditional roman letterform with the look of hand-crafted antique calligraphy” to produce an universally-abhorred font that lazy, amateur logo designers use almost daily to torture the public. It is commonly overused by restaurants, health and lifestyle companies, beauty spas, and New Age organizations.
Earlier this summer, Living Word Community Church found itself on the verge of a nasty church split because of the dreaded typeface. When LWCC leadership unveiled the church’s new logo on the jumbo-tron during a 9:30 worship/celebration service in August, audible gasps of horror were heard throughout the congregation as people immediately recognized the Papyrus font. Thankfully, Sunday school teacher Shelley Ladou was able to shield the children’s eyes and quickly return them to the classroom before they were exposed to the offensive lettering.
“Papyrus font?” lamented Betty Teagarden, a church member of LWCC for over ten years. “It took them three months and one thousand dollars to come up with a logo using Papyrus? Good grief, they might as well use Comic Sans MS and send us all straight to hell.”
Though most in the congregation learned to live with the new logo, Betty Teagarden and eleven other members eventually left Living Word to find a new church fellowship that “still believes in Helvetica.”
Surprisingly, The Barna Group holds out hope that there is still time for an eventual backlash to squelch the popularity of Papyrus before it’s too late. “Our latest research seems to indicate that congregations get bored easily and will soon be looking for the next popular typeface to come along that they can embrace,” explained Vincent. “In fact, we’ve seen evidence that Hobo may be making a huge comeback. May God helps us all.”
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