Down With Hypocrites

I received a letter from a young Christian expressing frustration with the hypocritical Christians everywhere. The fake attitudes, the judgmental arguments, and everything else. This young person believes in the Faith but thanks to "Christian people" they're nearly exasperated with the whole shooting match. So they asked, "is this normal?"

I replied,

Is it normal [to be frustrated with hypocrites]?



Yes. Or at least it ought to be.



You need to go through all the phases: shock, anger, disgust, malaise, etc. You haven't really thought seriously about your faith until you've wanted to take all the Christian t-shirt wearing, thee-and-thou praying, judgmental hypocrites and throw them into the sea. Only dimwitted, shallow dullards have never been disgusted at the empty lip service paid to what ought to be the most important part of their lives.

The problem is that once you separate yourself from the supposed "Christians" who don't love Jesus as much as they should, you find yourself standing with the mockers and cynics who openly hate Him. Oops.

Another problem is that young adults who get real fired up about this haven't lived long enough to catch themselves in the same hypocrisy they claim to detest. When this happens, you realize that you didn't mean to get so caught up in the world and put your own selfish needs above Christ, but thank goodness He can forgive someone like Peter who denies him three times. We are still a work in progress and we haven't arrived yet. In a sense, we're all hypocrites because God has given us a gift that we don't deserve.

Yet another angle is that there is a fine line between genuine holiness and fake, hypocritical legalism. In some cases the only difference is inside the heart. A lot of people feign outrage at the hypocrites as an excuse not to exercise the discipline it takes to live holy lives like God wants us to.

So be offended and outraged, so much so that you guard yourself against hypocrisy and shallowness. But don't let it creep in and tell you that you can check out, quit trying, berate the Bride of Christ, and then pat yourself on the back for being so much more enlightened than everyone else.

Because snobby young Christians are really just hypocrites and make me want to throw them into the sea.