Jacksonville Chapel/Emergence

Example:
History is tainted with Christians who have been scandalous, hypocritical, and oppressive. Many people have experienced personal encounters with Christians who have mistreated them. Why should anyone embrace a religion that produces hypocrisy?

Not too long ago, Ted Haggard, pastor of a 14,000 member Evangelical Church in Colorado Springs and one of the heads of the National Association of Evangelicals had being accused of having sexual relations and doing methamphetamines with another man for three years. Another high-profile Christian leader has been caught swimming in the waters of hypocrisy.

When we look at the current news of scandalous priests, and fallen pastors; when we look at history and see crusades, and witch-hunts, and imperialist wars; what are we to make of this?

Repentance
In Donald Miller’s book ‘blue like jazz,’ there is this great part where he and his friends set-up a confession booth in their college campus. The confession booth however, is not for others to come in and confess their sins, it is for others to come in, and hear Donald Miller and his Christian friends confess to them, as representatives of Christianity. There is an appropriateness to this; to ask for forgiveness for the atrocities committed in the Christian name.

As Christians, we can sit back and say that it is not us that committed the crime, it must be those false Christians, but if we do so, we too are deceived in believing that we are morally superior. Watch out! the Bible is filled with people who have walked with God, and fell hard under the power of corruption. Lest we think we are above that, we should pray that temptation not come our way.

The Jesus Community
For those who think that this argument is a good reason to discard Christianity, I would ask that you to think through this better. There is a difference between ‘Christendom’ and Gospel centered Christianity; one is about the relationship of power and the other, about love. The misdeeds of the misguided do not falsify the claims of a worldview.

During the same time the Haggard incident was made public, another news story echoed a different tune, a community that responded with love in the face of tragedy. An Amish community who in the wake of losing five of their children, responded by forgiving the accuser and praying for his family. One of the five children who died, a girl stood before the shooter and asked that her life be taken in place of her friends. Unlike the image of hypocrisy, this is the image of true love… I would argue, the image of Jesus.

My point in mentioning this, is that every story that details bad Christianity, there is always many others that detail good Christianity. It would be a mistake to base truth claims on the examples of bad representations.