Why Christians Should Embrace Hypocrisy

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Over the last week, I have been chewing on some new data put out by the Barna Group on why those with no faith tradition — the nones — doubt Christianity. 24% cited conflict in the world, 30% human suffering, 31% science. Yet, at the top of the list at 42% was the hypocrisy of religious people. 

Was I surprised? Not at all. Still, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it. 

As a pastor in Upstate New York where the majority of people have no faith tradition, I’m always interested in exploring data like this. It’s an opportunity to have honest conversations. 

Some may be quick to scoff at the idea of hypocrisy causing people to doubt Christianity. After all, the gospel hinges on the idea that all humans have sinned and therefore need a Savior. Christians are imperfect people who have been redeemed by a perfect Savior. Yet, at the same time, we’re called to become like Jesus.  

We should be people who display the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. We should be people who love our neighbors as ourselves. 

But it’s a process and we need to be more honest about. Christians will always be hypocrites because we can’t attain to perfection. That’s not an excuse, but rather a humble admission — one that I think people who aren’t Christians long to hear.

The Balancing Act

Orthodox Christianity exists in a tension. We’re imperfect and need a Savior. And yet, we’re called to follow Jesus and become like Him. 

Faced with this reality, there have been those who have said that since we sin and Jesus has saved us from sin, then there’s no use in really seeking to be transformed. Because of this, they are free to engage in any number of behaviors that are out of alignment with the way of Jesus. The thought is that if we’re not going to reach perfection and Jesus saves us from sin why bother being transformed? Armed with this reasoning, sin abounds while conviction wanes. 

From the outside, non-Christians rightly label this as hypocrisy. They have a sense of the moral supremacy of Jesus and to see Christians behaving immorally doesn’t compute. Some may even confront their Christian friends, family members, and acquaintances about it, only to be met with a non satisfactory answer about how grace covers sin and possibly an apologetic argument on absolute morality. 

The non-Christian recognizes the need for morality, recognizes the teachings of Jesus as moral, and recognizes that the actions of Christians don’t line up with those of their Savior. 

The Christian is right in proclaiming the need for grace and right for recognizing their immorality, but wrong in their philosophy of how we are to live in light of the grace that Jesus offers. To be a Christian is to admit that you’re a sinner, believe that Jesus has forgiven your sins through His death and resurrection, and confess that He is your Lord. It’s that last one that we’re not so good at. 

To confess Jesus as Lord, is to submit to His way of life. It’s a commitment to live according to His teachings. Does this nullify the need for grace? Absolutely not! We can’t live rightly on our own, nor will we live perfectly. We need grace! But grace doesn’t just provide forgiveness, it leads us to become like Jesus. In light of the grace we have received, we respond by surrendering our ways and allowing the Spirit of Jesus to reign in us, transforming us wholly —  though imperfectly this side of eternity. 

This type of Christianity is what I believe that non-Christians want to see. I don’t think anyone is truly demanding perfection. Instead, I think people just want to see Christians seeking to be like Jesus. 

The Path Forward 

As I sat listening to the first episode of How To Talk To People, a new podcast from The Atlantic, I connected some surprising dots. 

I was listening to Ty Tashiro, a social scientist who specializes in awkwardness — something I know much about myself — talk about the idea of owning our awkwardness as a catalyst to relationship building. He notes that everyone is awkward and when we lean into that in social interactions by acknowledging it, we become more likely to push past the barrier of developing new relationships.

It was helpful for sure, but my mind started thinking about the idea in light of the Barna research I mentioned earlier. Could it be that Christians simply need to more publicly embrace the tension of our hypocrisy, acknowledging that we’re imperfect people in need of grace who are being transformed day by day by the Spirit of Jesus working in us? It communicates the gospel message, acknowledges our hypocrisy, and speaks to the transformative nature of sanctification. 

Christians should be different. We should model the attributes of Jesus. The world is longing for us to do so. We’re not going to do this perfectly, but we can better communicate why we do it imperfectly. 

As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3,  “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

When we gaze upon Jesus, we become like Him through the Spirit working in us. It happens day by day, week by week, year by year. We progress from our sin-riddled self-absorbed selves into people who look like Jesus. 

As non-Christians get close to us, they should see Christ in us AND they should see our sin. But they should also see our repentance and humility and yearning to become like Jesus. If they did, history shows that more people would investigate Jesus for themselves instead of writing Him off based on how we live. 

The Witness of the Early Church

Writing of the improbable rise of Christianity in the Roman world, Harvard educated historian Alan Kreider notes in his book The Patient Ferment of the Early Church that “it was not primarily what the Christians said that carried weight with outsiders; it was what they did and embodied that was both disconcerting and converting. It was their habitus — their reflexes and ways of life that suggested that there was another way to perceive reality — that made the Christians interesting, challenging, and worth investigating.” (Kreider, 51)

As the Bishop of Carthage in North Africa, Cyprian wrote in the 250’s in the midst of great difficulty that Christians “are philosophers not in words but in deeds; we exhibit our wisdom not by our dress, but by truth; we know virtues by their practice rather than through boasting of them; we do not speak great things but we live them.” (As quoted in Kreider, 13)

Living rightly was an expectation in the early church. Christians were to let their light shine before everyone so that others might see their good deeds and praise their Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16). The church was intentional about discipleship and character formation. Even entry into the church was an intensive discipleship process centered around right living (see chapters 6, 7, and 8 of Kreider for more on this).

Not everyone followed through. Origen, the early church apologist, entreated these people in his sermons to repent for their own sake and the sake of their witness to the world about Christ. (Kreider, 129) There was a sense in the early church that hypocritical living was damaging to self and to the world. Yet at the same time, Origen in his apologetic writings noted that even the members of the Church who weren’t living excellently were still bright lights compared to the world at large (Ibid.). 

When Christians are serious about living like Jesus, it turns the world upside down as it did the Roman world. As Christians rubbed shoulders with non-Christians in their everyday lives, their behavior was markedly different and that was what drew others into the church. If we can once again regain a seriousness about right living, the world will take notice. We won’t do it perfectly, but if we’re quick to repent, quick to admit our fault to others (non-Christians included), and quick to point to our need for Jesus, it just may kindle the flames of awakening.