It’s common today to hear critics of Christianity, or indeed of religion in general, assail the religious for their many faults. Perhaps they complain about their neighbor who faithfully attends worship every Sunday but is often ill-tempered at home. They may remember the believing friend of many years ago, who, though prosperous, shared none of his wealth with the poor. Perhaps their son works for a Christian willing to receive God’s grace and mercy, yet who never seems to pass that same grace and mercy on to his employees.
We Christians often nod our heads, agreeing with the criticisms. We squirm when we hear remarks like these because when they are accurate, and they often are, they reveal our flaws. Or if not our personal flaws then the failings of other believers. Yet all these barbs, aimed at individual wrongs, are important since they tell us believers where we have gone astray.
These personal failings, no matter how minor or how severe, can tell us much about the individual Christians we often meet, but they tell us nothing about the religion itself. Yet many people who encounter the errant Christian are quick to reject – or at least to criticize – Christianity itself.
As if the faults of the believer count as points against the belief, so that the value of the faith rises and falls with the character of the faithful. But why? We don’t blame the car when the driver loses control and hits a pedestrian. So why do we blame the religion when a believer runs off the road?
Yet the analogy of car and driver falls short. Religion is a way of life, not a machine that we operate. Christianity is meant to inform and guide our mind, heart, and body, not to serve as a vehicle that transports us to a desired destination. Finally, faith must be a lasting commitment, not a convenience that we trade in for a newer model every few years.
The Christian has willingly embraced these truths, so it’s fine for outsiders to expect more of us. We are not an arbitrary group of people, like all the owners of Toyotas, or the suburbanites who happen to share the same zip code. We’ve made a serious commitment and therefore should be judged, as believers, by how true we stay to that commitment.
But it is in the nature of things that all believers will fall short of the ideals given in religious doctrine; for a Christian, these ideals are embodied in the life of Jesus. Some of us, sadly, will fall far short. Criticism of these failings is legitimate, and much needed, but it is a criticism of human nature, not of religion in general, or of Christianity in particular.
Critics are simply wrong when they turn away from religion because of the personal failings of believers.
This misguided practice of judging the religion by the religious arises because the critic is looking at the religion from the outside.
But if the critic could magically cross the threshold and enter the world of Christian belief, they would be surprised. The beliefs they formerly thought strange will spring to life around them. They will find hope and assurance for a better life, and comfort and community when they suffer.
They will follow the disciplines like prayer, worship, and service to others – practices which will implant their beliefs more deeply into their bodies and into their daily lives. And as they sometimes struggle to live out their faith, they will see the disparity between their own life and that of Christ. Inevitably, like all believers, they too will fall short. Even so, they will know that they are loved and valued in spite of this.
Surely one of the reasons that humans respond to the call of the divine must be our sense that we are weak and alone. Arising from that reality grows a hope that seeking help and comfort from the divine can help us to live better lives. After all, if it was easy to be perfect and pure, then we wouldn’t need religion in the first place.
As a Christian friend of mine once observed – in the end, we’re all just a bunch of sinners.
