just can't stand it.
Non-Christians are such hypocrites. They should learn to practice what they
preach. How could anyone become a non-Christian? They don't even live what
they claim to believe!"
"
just can't stand it.
Non-Christians are such hypocrites. They should learn to practice what they
preach. How could anyone become a non-Christian? They don't even live what
they claim to believe!"
I have yet to hear any new converts voice such objections, but I'd like to. Countless non-Christians have claimed to reject the Christian faith by gaping at the scandalous lives of many professing Christians. But if we were to apply these same standards of hypocrisy to non-Christians, then Christian hypocrisy, as wicked as it is, would easily pale, no, almost vanish, by comparison.
When professing Christians display their hypocrisy, we bristle that they so widely broadcast their alleged commitment to Christ but act as if He were an empty fiction. Their open adulteries or gossip or lack of reverence show that they don't really believe that God is their near-and-present judge. No criminal defendant in a human court would make nasty faces at his judge or dance a rude jig around the courtroom while the judge prepares a sentence. A Christian hypocrite is one who professes that the judge's bench is filled but acts like it's really vacant.
Non-Christians are even more hypocritical. They claim to be very confident that there is no judge, courtroom, or any law, but they spend their whole lives revealing that they know that the judge is really sitting there watching. Even the most blasphemous opponents of the "alleged" judge still demand to have injustices retributed, still demand that we reason according to the set rules of the court, and still demand that they are innocent of any crimes. They verbally deny the existence of the judge but act like the bench is filled. They don't have the courage of their convictions, because they know those convictions are false. Non-Christians are exceedingly hypocritical.
For example, non-Christians committed to the mythology of evolution, an impersonal cosmos grinding out valueless, buzzing matter, still chirpily insist on human rights, the value of all living things, and universal rules of reason and toleration. Pure hypocrisy! Similarly, non-Christians committed to a New Age or Eastern oneness of all things still insist on looking both ways before they cross a street. More hypocrisy. Their actions belie their professions.
In Romans 1:18ff., the apostle Paul famously describes non-Christians as those who know that God is their Creator and Judge but "suppress the truth in unrighteousness." God has made the knowledge of Himself so clear "that they are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20). They know it, and they show it, among other ways, in their hypocrisy. They act like they live in a Christian universe, even though they deny it. Because of this ungratefulness, this suppression of the truth, Paul tells us that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven" against them, for "although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts" (Rom. 1:18,21).
We can see the hypocrisy of non-Christians not only in their refusal to live in accord with their professed convictions but also in those unguarded moments when they reveal their deepest heart conditions. We all have or know those moments when we reveal the true state of our thinking -- the politician who accidently shows his contempt for his constituents, the saint who curses under his breath, the calm neighbor who goes on a rampage.
We joke about there being "no atheists in foxholes" or how people become so religious during accidents and disasters. Calvin noted that "one reads of no one who burst forth into bolder or more unbridled contempt of deity than Gaius Caligula; yet no one trembled more miserably when any sign of God's wrath manifested itself." Caligula would hide under his bed during thunder storms. All of this sort of crisis-behavior is really very odd. Why do people who may never give any serious thought to divine things turn pleading to God during a crisis? Why do some yearn for forgiveness before imminent death?
Why don't they just indifferently recall that they are mere products of an impersonal universe or one with all things? Because these views are false, and they really do know the true God deep down inside. Their most basic devotions race to the surface when they are about to see the Judge face to face. (Sure, non-Christian psychologists can give other explanations for this crisis behavior, but they would show their own hypocrisy in doing so.)
When he was in Athens before the esteemed intellectuals of his day, Paul pointed out how desperately religious they were. Their idolatries revealed a deep, culpable knowledge of God, though they tried to deny it (the "unknown God") by exchanging the truth of God for a lie (Rom. 1:25). Paul criticized their philosophies at every step of the way, showing their inadequacies and folly. We ought to do the same, in all gentleness (1 Pet. 3:15). We ought to show our non-Christian friends their deeply religious tendencies. We ought to point out their hypocrisy. Why can't they live in accord with their professed beliefs? If their view of things were true, what reason would they have for respecting others, loving their children, opposing injustices, feeling guilty, preferring truth, reasoning, or staying alive? All of these things and more testify to their knowledge of the true God. We must appeal in all humility to our non-Christian friends. Hypocrisy overwhelms you! Your own life so clearly reveals that y ou know your views are false. Don't be a hypocrite, turn to Christ!
