Have you ever felt forced to defend your faith as a result of the bad actions of another Christian? If you haven’t, I’m certain at some point you will.
If you’re anything like me, you cringe when you see other Christians falling short of their calling as followers of Christ — it’s even more cringeworthy when you’re the one falling short.
There will come a time when someone you know, a friend, a family member or just an acquaintance, will ask you the dreaded question: “How can you be a Christian when Christians do ___________.”
What fills in the blank could be any number of things.
When I was your age, it was usually about some well-known television pastor who cheated on his wife or stole money from the church — the most prominent being Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and, later on, Ted Haggard. These were some of the most well-known Christians in the world, whose sermons were broadcast weekly to millions.
The response by many Christians was one of shock and disappointment — and, in many cases, exclusion. These were the cautionary tales of my youth; Christians who sinned and fell short of the glory of God in very public ways. It was traumatizing for many in the Church because it did serious damage to the witness of Christians everywhere.
To the unchurched, it was just another example (among many) of sanctimonious, “holier than than thou” Christians who don’t practice what they preach. Brennan Manning, a prolific Christian author I’ve mentioned in this space before, put it simply:
“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
It was Gandhi, the Hindu freedom fighter, who famously said that he liked Christ, but not Christians because they are “so unlike Christ.”
In the larger historical context, there are many examples of Christians doing awful things and sometimes using the name of Christ, or the scriptures, to justify them. If you haven’t already, you’ll learn about the Crusades in your world history class; you may learn about biblical defenses of slavery in the Civil War era; you will likely learn about the rise of nazism in Germany among a population that was largely Christian. This led to the passive acceptance or, shockingly, active participation in the genocide of six million Jews. Most recently, there’s the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church to its core.
How is any of this possible? How can we follow a God who would let Christians do such bad things? Why do so many fall short?
Jesus had a lot to say about hypocrisy. At many times and in many places, he was surrounded by hypocrites — people who said one thing and did another. In the Sermon on the Mount, he warned us that there would be people who claimed to be followers but were actually “ferocious wolves.”
It is important to understand that we are all sinners; we are all guilty of saying one thing and doing another from time to time. In the conflict between right and wrong, there will be times when we find ourselves on the wrong side.
As followers of Christ, we are his witnesses; we are called to be salt and light, to be his hands and feet. When we are living our lives as God intended, people will recognize Christ in our words and deeds. We become the antithesis of what Gandhi said about Christians.
Let’s try to be more like Christ every day!
Join us Sunday night to discuss! See you at 6 p.m. It’s Qdoba week!
The Pipe 