Christian hypocrites
Was talking to Sara a few days ago about Christian hypocrites (for some reason…) and we came to the interesting conclusion that to be a Christian necessitates being a hypocrite. Let me explain.
People who know Christians are often put off by the hypocritical nature of their friends. My dad turned away from Christianity when he was a teenager because of the hypocrisy he saw in his ‘Christian’ friends. For a Christian, being tagged as a hypocrite usually means talking the talk but not walking the walk - professing faith in Jesus but acting no different from the world.
But the current proposition says that Christians are necessarily hypocrites, to some extent at least. Hypocrites need something to be hypocritical about - for example, Christian beliefs and a resultant ‘expected way of life’. The problem for Christians is that we aspire to an (in this life) unattainable standard, who is Jesus Christ himself. So no matter how much ‘good’ we do in our lives, at some level we will be hypocrites because we do not, and indeed cannot, wholly walk the life of Jesus who we proclaim.
Non-Christians don’t have this problem. They don’t have this standard to compare to, and therefore can’t technically be described as hypocritical in this sense. Of course, if they have their own values to adhere to and don’t adhere to them, then the hypocrite label would necessarily apply.
So perhaps being a Christian means being a hypocrite. We just have to make sure that even though we know we can’t attain perfection this side of the second coming, we don’t become complacent and become like the world.