"Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things."
- Romans 2:1
We're all hypocrites. As a Christian, I am a hypocrite. If you are a Christian, you are a hypocrite. If you're not a Christian, you're a hypocrite. Hypocrisy, it is sad to say, is a human problem. It's strange, then, that the world paints it as an exclusively Christian problem.
When you ask a non-Christian why they are not Christian, there is a very high chance "hypocritical Christians" will come up. Perhaps it's due to personal experience with such Christians. Perhaps, though lacking experience, it's someone they know of. Maybe, it's just the fact Christians are portrayed as hypocrites in the media, or just by culture as a whole. Whatever the case, it's clear that no one likes hypocritical Christians, and this is very often cited as a reason to reject Christianity.
This attitude, however, is itself hypocritical, first because Christianity is the one and only religion such people will use this argument against. Hypocrites, of course, exist in all religions, because everyone is a hypocrite. There are hypocritical Muslims. There are hypocritical Jews. There are hypocritical Hindus. Buddhists, Sikhs, Evolutionists, there are hypocrites in every single religion, because hypocrisy is a flaw common to all men.
But there are two kinds of hypocrisy. The first is to profess a belief one fails to live up to. The second is to profess a belief one doesn't even hold. Sadly, the Church is full of both.
Of course, the kind people take the most exception to are the "holier than thou" kinds, who run around judging other people's sins while being blind to their own. It's worth noting, God Himself takes exception to these people: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." (1 John 1:8-10).
What business, then, do such people have calling themselves Christians? Having been so thoroughly condemned by the word of God, these people are more condemned even than an unbeliever. Scripture consistently affirms that knowledge and judgement correspond to each other. For example, in Luke 12:47-48, Jesus warns "And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more."
This is one of many scriptures that speaks to hypocritical Christians. Consistency is vital in the Christian faith, and one can deny Christ as much by deed as by word. But the flip side of this is that actually, as the same verse cited above tells us, we cannot say we have no sin. We have sins to confess, and must do so in order to have them cleansed. What does that make us? By definition, hypocrites. We profess a certain set of beliefs, yet on a daily basis, fail to live up to them. Like Peter, walking on water to the Lord, we start to sink. Like Moses, commanded to speak to the rock, we instead strike it. Like Abraham, believing we will have a child, we sleep with our slave girls rather than our wives. As Christians, we are all hypocrites. Our faith wavers, our feet step off our solid ground, and our moral backbone is crooked.
But Christ's wasn't.
The ironic thing is, while the world finds Christianity so repugnant because of hypocrites, Christianity itself belongs to the only man in history who never once fell short of His own standards. He professed love, He walked in love. He preached pure religion, He followed pure religion. The hypocrites crucified Him because they hated how much He showed them up. And frankly, this is the reason modern hypocrites hate Him, too.
Of course, it's clear that the Mildreds of the world would not let Jesus into their churches either. But what could stop the world from letting Him into their hearts, if indeed they truly hate hypocrisy? "For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." (John 3:20).
But that's all of us. We all practice evil, and when we are exposed to the light of Christ, that is exposed. And it's not pleasant. We'd much rather spend time judging others than ourselves. That could be by convincing ourselves we're somehow better than everyone because we follow a certain religion. It could be by comparing ourselves to the worst of people and saying "at least I'm not that bad". Or it could be by looking at people who are not Jesus not being Jesus. But it is utter folly to suggest that Jesus should be judged on the basis of those who claim His name, yet fail to meet His standards.
The irony is, while unbelievers are judging Jesus based on the sins of His followers, the Father already beat them to it. "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21). For this reason, I can say that yes, I, Bible Brian, am a hypocritical Christian. I believe that the wages of sin is death, and yet I sin regularly. I'm not going to confess what they all are in this article, mainly because my rap sheet is long enough to make the cross upon which Jesus hung. But those sins are, in fact, hung upon that cross.
And yours can be too. You may not be perfect, but in God's eyes, you can be, simply because you swap verdicts with the one man who is. Confess your sins, and He will cleanse you from them. Confess Him as Lord, and believe He rose from the dead, and you will rise with Him into eternal life. Why would you let the kind of hypocrites you so hate drag you down to Hell with them?