Welcome to part two of the “Big C”, a series of posts examining the reasons most young adults (and older ones too) give for not going to church. In this post we’ll tackle one of the MOST widely used excuses for not attending church:
“All Christians are hypocrites”
Ahh, the dreaded H word. Just so we’re all on the same page, lets start off with a definition. According to Mirriam-Webster, a hypocrite is:
1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
Now… I’ll proceed to poke holes in your flimsy excuse with my pointy stick of truth.
Nowhere in the above definition does it state that the word “Hypocrite” is to be applied only to Christians. In fact, I’m willing to bet that almost all of us have fit this description at some point in time. That’s right, you, me, uncle Joe, errrrrbody. We all try to appear more virtuous than we actually are. We all contradict ourselves from time to time. The phrase “Actions speak louder than words” wasn’t coined specifically for Christians. The only person who’s NEVER said one thing and done the exact opposite is Jesus Christ himself. We’re all hypocritical. Therefore, saying all Christians are hypocrites is like saying all Buddhists have skin.
There are plenty of people who label themselves Christians simply because it sounds good. But, there are also many people who see Christianity as a lifestyle and sincerely desire to have a relationship with God. This brings me to my second point: Never make vast sweeping assumptions about an entire group of people unless you’ve personally encountered the ENTIRE group of people. Every cop I’ve ever met has been a complete jerk. Does that mean all cops are jerks? Of course not. Does that mean all cops are perfect? Of course not. The same goes for Christians. Jimmy Swaggart is a Christian. So am I. Does his hypocrisy make my faith any less credible? No, because it’s MY faith.
Thirdly, even if all Christians were hypocrites (and we’re not); what difference should it make to you? Do you have a severe allergy to hypocrisy? Would you die if you were forced to sit next to a hypocrite? I doubt it. Could it impede your spiritual growth? Maybe (we’ll deal with that in a later post). The point is to START growing! Besides, as I said before, there are plenty of real, non-hypocritical Christians out there. You just have to get off of your lazy butt and go find them. I did. And, give or take the normal ups and downs of the exploratory process, it’s definitely payed off!
Excellent Post! love your in-depth explanation of why we should not and cannot use this excuse, another thing is that the person using this excuse is also very hypocritical in their thinking, because they may think they have no sin and that makes them a liar. Their is no excuse not to go to Church.
Thanks for responding! And you most definitely have a point. Accusing others of hypocrisy is hypocritical in and of itself!
Say what you wiil but the last so called christians we entertained ripped us off of some things. But as a Jew I would say mos christians are most likely thieves or hos, I would think I could meet a better class of people in a local bar than I could at church. Yes you are all hypocrites!
Hi Neiiya. First of all, I’m sorry that you got ripped off. What if I judged all Jews based on your comment? Would it be fair for me to say that all Jews make blanket statements and call people nasty names lol? You cant judge an entire group of people based on the actions of a few. And like I said in the post, everyone’s a hypocrite. Not just Christians right? I mean i’m sure the tora doesn’t promote labeling people as thieves and hos lol. In any case, All im saying is every individual within a group deserves to be seen as an individual, not shackled to a negative group identity.