Christian Hypocrisy

I’ve noticed that most of the people who have a bone to pick with Christianity focus on its hypocritical devotees or the paradoxical nature of theology. They sometimes go to extremes to quote Old Testament strictures that seem ridiculous in the context of today. But very few people really have a problem with Jesus.

Whether they think of Him as a historical figure, or a literary character, or a wise prophetic voice speaking a truth that was needed at that time and place, most of the non-Christians I speak with don’t really have a problem with Jesus the man. He seems like a selfless person who only got angry in defense of other people. Some folks have even expressed a mild curiosity over how counterculture Christ was to His own time and to the Christian culture that claims to be inspired by Him.

The most frequent explanation for this I hear in the church is that Jesus didn’t come to start a religion, He came to re-establish a relationship. Somehow that doesn’t resonate with a lot of people. There’s a lot of ways to view Christ’s sacrifice and they’re probably all true. For example the legal view—the wages of sin is death and Christ died in substitution for us. But you can look around and still see people dying. Life after death in any form is a tough sell to an agnostic. The worst part of that explanation is that it makes God seem blood thirsty. Why didn’t a loving God just let us off the hook?

Even the relationship view is a tough one at first. Sin separated human from God, Christ’s death removes that barrier. But who wants to have a relationship with a bloodthirsty God? If He wants to start a relationship, He should just walk up and say hello.

I don’t have answers for all this, but I can address the hypocrisy issue. And this is not an explanation that most Christians are going to embrace right away.

Romans 8 says this:

Verse 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit…9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

This means that a person who claims to be a Christian and does not act like one does not have the Spirit of Christ! Well that’s what it says. But back up a tad and consider the context of the verse.

Verse 1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin…

So in a nutshell—Christians are continuously faced with the option to live out of the accumulated wounds and scars they’ve acquired through life OR to live from the Spirit of God which is given to them freely by God. Most days we do both.

We do so for many reasons:
1) Habit/familiarity (you have to be transformed through controlling your thought life to not use autopilot.)

2) Fear (living according to the Spirit means facing situations you don’t feel equipped to face, loving/forgiving/etc.)

3) Lack of example (there are examples of Spirit living all around but almost everything we see is of the flesh.)

4) Distraction (Lots of attention demands, denying flesh is an act of will.)

Fortunately, the answers are simple. We’re perpetually forgiven when we realize we’ve drifted away and decide to return. God is less hung up on our failures than we are. 

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