"Hypocrisy" in the Church

It seems as though as of late (and by that I mean over the past 2000 years or so), the safety net argument of atheism and agnosticism seems to be the perception of so-called "hypocrisy" in the Christian church. Now, in my limited experience, this argument has primarily been a last resort and is almost always an emotive response to Christianity. Be that as it may, agnostics and atheists frequently fall back on either propaganda fed to them by media, academic professors, "best seller" books, and Dateline specials or some negative personal experience in or by the church. They seem to revel in this as they enjoy the "score-one-for-the-antitheists" attitude.

As you may have already guessed, given the nature of my web log, I have a few problems with this accusation. The two issues I'll discuss here are (1) "hypocrisy" is not just a Christian phenomenon and (2) this perceived "hypocrisy" is a question of standards.

Before we progress any further, when the world says "hypocrisy," in my estimation they mean that someone professes to believe a proposition while acting against that very proposition. An example would be as follows: I believe that it is wrong to lie. When I lie, that is perceived as being hypocritical.

One difficulty with slinging this particular mud in the face of Christianity is that this epidemic is not strictly a Christian illness. In fact, in my experience, at one time or another everyone in the world is guilty of believing or professing to believe something while simultaneously acting against that professed belief. So in order to be fair (which the antitheist rarely is), the mud must be slung in the face of every person who has been hypocritical, including his or her own. In fact, if an antitheist accuses a Christian of being hypocritical, and then commits the same act, that is being hypocritical in itself. So if one is to use the argument, "Christians are hypocrites," one must apply the accusation to everyone who is a hypocrite, which would severely weaken the argument. Otherwise, one would do well to withdraw this accusation all together.

Also, this perceived "hypocrisy" is a matter of standards. Essentially, there are two elements at play here. The first is our "moral." This is what we actually believe about any particular matter. The second is our "ethic," what we actually practice in any particular matter. The correlation of these two elements determines the strength of our integrity. A high correlation of belief and practice makes high integrity. A lack of correlation between these two is what the antitheistic world would call "hypocrisy." Herein lies the problem from a Christian perspective. As Christians, while we are, for the most part, responsible for what we do, we (try to) let God set the standard for what we believe. Unfortunately for fallen humanity, God's standard is perfection in all areas. When we fail to meet these moral standards, it is perceived as "hypocrisy." The world's solution to this problem is to lower the moral standard until it matches your current ethical situation. These are the makings of a mediocre-at-best person with high integrity. This is never, never, never, not even once, not even a little bit, an option for Christians (don't even think about it). When it comes down to compromising God's moral standard on our lives and being called a "hypocrite" by a few ignorant hypocrites, we must be prepared to choose the latter eleven times out of ten.

I believe we would do well to define some terms at this point. My definition of "hypocrisy" as stated above, while representing the world's perception of hypocrisy, is not true hypocrisy. Sure it's bad, sure it's sin, sure it's an example of the black eye of humanity shining brightly on the face of Christianity, but it isn't hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a double standard. Hypocrisy isn't acting against what I believe. Hypocrisy is thinking that it is acceptable for me to act against what I believe. It is setting a different standard for myself than for everyone else. If I believe that it is wrong to be prideful and then I, myself, am prideful, while I am sinning, I am not being a hypocrite. This is evident when I confess that what I have done is wrong. However, if I believe that it is wrong for everyone else to be prideful, but I believe it is o.k. for me, then it becomes hypocrisy. And if the informed antitheist were to examine the Christian church with this new understanding of hypocrisy, he or she would find that it, while still existing here and there, is quite a bit more rare than he or she expects.

Finally, many times when an antitheist uses this argument, he or she likes to site various instances of perceived "hypocrisy" ranging from the Crusades, to some priest in the news who abused an altar boy, to a negative personal experience with a pastor or church-member. To this, I would like to say two things. First, this line of argumentation frequently leans toward the "boo/yeah," emotive argumentation. If you are familiar at all with philosophy, arguments, apologetics, or any sort of academic discourse, you know that this emotive argumentation has no place in an argument based on truth and reality. Second, while these negative things do happen from time to time, they are not the norm in Christianity nor are they approved by most Christians. Antitheists need to understand that the Christian Church is full of humans and humans, all humans, make mistakes.

Anyway, all of this is to say that the argument that many atheists and agnostics use that Christians are hypocrites holds very little water and probably should be withdrawn and discarded from one's arsenal.

Peace out.