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Big Brains and Simple Saints

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Atheism and Christian Behaviour

Consider for a while the position of an activist who’s got an enormous bee in his bonnet about religion in general, getting into a flap about Christianity, wanting it banished from the face of the earth. He parcels it all up into one ugly bundle and throws it into the face of God as irrefutable evidence of His non-existence. Intensely enthusiastic, he strictly adheres to the fundamental tenets of evolutionary theory. Evolution is "a fact" supported by many scientific discoveries. Yes, evolution is fantastically improbable—the odds against it are truly immense—but over millions and millions of years the gradual process of natural selection has made it happen. Time delivers apparent miracles.

He sermonises about the religious horrors of history and the intense suffering of humanity, innocent children included. (If Jesus wept over human suffering1 back then, He must still be weeping now. There's enough pain to fill the entire universe.) He claims that the unavoidable and often hurtful randomness that disrupts our daily experience is proof-positive that God doesn’t exist. He claims that too many inconsistencies in the Bible lie beyond reasonable explanation. He's insists that faith is meaningless yet demonstrably harmful too. But whether he's right or wrong in his specifics—and how many can know for sure?—much of his irritation and industry is misplaced. The crux has eluded him.

The perceived certainty of evolution, fastened to mountains of evidence brought against world religions, won't make much of a dent in humanity's unceasing and unsophisticated quest for God. Scientific complexities are beyond most people. How many are really interested? The atheist activist campaigns for a more balanced education system to free young minds, but he's flogging a dead horse. Scientific knowledge will only influence children and teens who have the capacity and inclination to take a keen interest. Even then, will they usefully hold on to all they've learned well into adulthood? Perhaps. Anyway, tireless Christian churches won't go away, not even under the whip of persecution. So changing laws to help free kids' minds from the Christian ethos will have limited effect.

If our atheist friend had been through my religious experiences he would have a lot more meaningful ammunition to hand. For, more than anything else, it’s the inherent deficiencies of human nature that effectively impair the witness of both individual Christians and every group of believers on the planet. One way or another such frailties account for most of the atheistic backlashes we’ve encountered down through history. Blatant Christian hypocrisy and mortifying fringe fundamentalism only fuel the criticism.

The combative atheist is dealing with paltry things when he lectures about the fact of evolution and the glorious victory of science over religion. He’s wasting his time firing blanks. I fear it won’t get him anywhere in the long run, even if he turns others into atheists. Of course he's entitled to his considered opinions and a qualified interpretation of the currently available facts. Christians who bark back are also chasing their tails. It’s not just about who’s wrong and who’s right. It’s about the human condition that self-destructs, that’s selfish, that’s arrogant, that's dogmatic, that's biased, that’s confrontational, that’s fanatical, that’s mistaken, that’s lustful, that’s sinful—that’s ultimately hypocritical. Christians, ditch your apologetics! Put your creationist books back on the shelf. Put all your time into reading The New Testament. Cut to the chase.

It’s the power of transformed holy lives that's supposed to give The Good News wings, but where is the living potent Church many hope for and believe in? A careful reading of Bible texts reveals how shaky the first churches became after the initial surge mentioned in The Acts of the Apostles. If nothing else Scripture is honest! The waywardness of the Corinthian church is a good example. Sincerity isn’t enough. Positive thinking isn’t faith. There's a Bible blueprint: By the Holy Spirit, Christ-likeness and effectual faith should eventually be overflowing in the lives of adults who believe, otherwise forget it. But observationally, it's just not happening. Something's out of order. Please tell us where on earth it’s not.

There’s lamentable naivety on both sides. You can’t destroy the notion of God any more than you can dismiss the potency of secular science. The struggle for dominance, or even balance, is misplaced. Separation from the penetrating influence of the world simply isn’t happening in churches. The world is what it is and it’s poison to the life of churches. Even prosperous well-attended churches are carved open by a multitude of damaging weaknesses that are seen daily in the lives of all believers, usually outside of the church building, but certainly not exclusively so.

What Christians get up to at church isn't half as important as how they behave everywhere else. Conduct matters. There are even occasions when believers have to make sure their goodness isn't mistaken for evil. Standards are high—too high for many, undeniably. Most importantly of all, how a Christian behaves and thinks in total privacy best defines who and what that person actually is. Worryingly, the private person can often be at odds with the outward persona. The private person is the truth. There are very serious issues when the fundamental truth behind closed doors doesn't match the personality, behaviour and character most people are familiar with. A mere outward show is worthless. More than that: it's thoroughly unchristian.

Someone I’ve a lot of respect for once sent me a book. I read it very carefully, making lots of pencil notes in the margins. But it exasperated me because the author, writing fifty years ago, honestly believed that the time would come when all Christians could put aside their minor church differences and concentrate on the things that really matter, like Christ Himself! Total unity without compromise. Sounds like a good idea, but it hasn’t happened. I fear it won’t happen. Why? It’s idealistic and nothing more.

In principle most would agree that it would be nice if the divisions among churches could be set to one side in favour of the biblical Person of Christ and His goals for Christians. But what about the spiritual sickliness that disrupts the lives of many who profess to believe? This is important, but you wouldn't think so in the actual everyday outworking of Church life.

Intractable issues can't be shelved until a more convenient day dawns. None has been solved after 2000 years of effort and prayer meetings and Bible study. Time is up. What's the problem? It's the people themselves. There's a general lack of discipline, commitment and godly zeal. Discerning Christians have to come to terms with manipulation and poor judgment by church elders. Even if leaders manage to get it right, the body of believers they care for is inevitably a depressingly eclectic group continually afflicted by petty disputes, differing levels of faith and experience, the glib acceptance of "sin", misconceptions, immaturity, bias, conceit, deceit, self-assertiveness and self-centeredness, apathy, cliques, crude humour, unchristian "worldly" influences, one-upmanship, rivalry, jealousy, gossip and so on and so forth till the end of time. Human failings mean that even if divisions among true churches could be officially set aside, this bold enterprise for unity wouldn’t stand a chance within each local assembly.

A polite formalism, even in assemblies that denounce formalism, usually holds a local church together one way or another. Shake hands warmly, be kind, dignified and godly in a superficial way at least. But what's that worth? Under pressure the mask slips and below the microscope of long experience the finer details can be most unpleasant. Is this not true? It’s over fifty years since this book was written, but we’re no further on. In fact it could be reasonably argued that things are much worse today. The abundance of modern church flavours have merely stirred the mix more thoroughly and added to the schisms, disagreements and impotence.

So what’s the answer? Is there one? If there isn't, what are the implications for Christianity today... and tomorrow?

We all go through stuff that makes us feel like life itself is against us. It isn't easy being less than we hoped; it's inevitable too. Regrets grow more uncomfortable with age and it's those squeaky-clean people who may be the first to throw stones. Some conclude that life—with plenty of help from Self—has hammered them out of shape. But perhaps it has hammered us all into a new more useful shape. Many will be convinced that it has nothing to do with building Christian character, you can be sure of that. This awareness is good. We are told that sin and a lack of discipline (they're best defined as doing things great and small that God firmly disapproves of) lead to compromise and an inability to handle or discern the Truth. If so then this in itself is yet another sorry constant in churches that helps to perpetuate instability and feebleness. Just dealing with daily life is a problem all by itself and it makes the Christian's witness and testimony anything but straightforward.

Churches get people “saved” and then drop them into the middle of a nasty mess that rumbles on and on with no solution in sight. Good intentions are useless when bubbles burst. How can those in church authority—men and women of God-built character, supposedly, who claim to be walking with God daily—how can they be responsible for so many dreadful miscalculations, and even skilful manipulations aimed at instilling a desire to get involved through guilt? Shouldn't it be a spiritual desire born of prayer, Bible reading and a genuine love for Christ? I've endured this type of engineering to the point where I was the last man standing. It's shameful. If pastors and elders and deacons, and whatever other names they may go under, are empowered by God with a spirit of wisdom and revelation, why can’t they hold it together? Is it the congregation's fault, those weary individual Christians who are unable to perform and so can't succeed?

The goal isn't perfection—only a fool would think that. Human mistakes and failures are inevitable, otherwise who would need God to turn weakness into strength? Despite their best intentions Christians often end up doing the very things they don't want to do. But it's those best intentions that count for so much. They should be there all the time, drilling their way through the imperfections and limitations. How many are truly troubled when their old natures fight their good intentions and let God down? Not enough, and that's the point. The Christian objective should be a body of believers whose lives are righteously dedicated to the will of God—individuals who desire to glorify God "in all things", in every aspect of their daily existence, in public and in private. This is what normal Christianity is supposed to be. And that's what's lacking most.

Factions that stem from strong disagreements have shaken even large churches. It's just untameable human nature on the loose. What a beast. Don't blame the devil. Blame yourselves. Be the person God wants you to be and you can chase the Devil away. Can't you? God says you don't contend with people but with evil spiritual powers! So what's the solution when immorality raises its ugly head behind the scenes? What should you do when other Christians can’t stand you being around and fall out with you bitterly? Is there a fix for intellectual pulpit addresses that choke the living word for that hour—the uplifting message that's supposed to spiritually nourish ordinary lives where they are?

Let's be honest for a change. Unbelievers are looking on in dismay. And worse still, many understandably ridicule what they see and hear. It has been suggested that the hypocritical behaviour of certain individuals means they are not genuine Christians. But without further clarification this can be misleading. While it's true there are indeed hypocrites who are not genuine believers, assuming unbelievers/atheists are being critical of overt "pretence" is an unacceptable oversimplification. A biblical and literal definition of hypocrisy leaves too many unsettling loose ends needing addressed. And maybe local churches need to do a better job of weeding out the genuine hypocrites, if it's possible to identify them precisely (infallibly?).

Actually, what's usually being criticised is often inconsistency and self-contradiction in the lives of real born again Christians. That's a different thing to hypocrisy and it's all too common in our churches. The New Testament makes it plain that being a Christian isn't easy, but heartfelt daily commitment through a sincere love for God is essential (see next page). Dying to self so Christ may live in and through them is the goal of Christians, and many fail regularly. In fact, there's quite a long list of failings. Human nature is a poor advertisement for Jesus. Even dedicated believers do wrong things big and small and they earnestly believe they need Christ's assistance to get cleaned up again.

Stopping at highlighting the reality of religious hypocrites (biblically defined) fails to address the causes of the Church's ongoing credibility problem in modern society. We should all be concerned when apologetics appears to become a vehicle for lame excuses. It would of course be a total nonsense to suggest that when church members are anything but Christ-like they're really just fakes. The critics are smarter than that. When seen up close, local churches generally fail to make the grade because real Christians continually make a mess of things, and it's a poor showing for a watching world. Let's forget about the hypocrites. Why is there so much failure and indiscipline among Christians?

There are dejected Christians who wrestle painfully with sexual problems that include pornography, fantasies, suppressed homosexual tendencies and even various forms of abuse.2 There are confessing Christians who eventually succumb to adultery. There are plenty who appear to be addicted to alcohol and nicotine. Some with many years of Christian experience are unable to tame their explosive tempers — while driving perhaps. Many use colourful swear words that most deem inappropriate.

Leading figures in church life appear in court charged with a variety of motoring offences. Church-touring Christian singers and musicians abandon their husbands and wives and together disappear into the sunset. Through the working week Christian businessmen feel obliged to use dubious tactics to balance the books yet have no qualms about singing God's praises each Sunday. How many Christians copy and share Christian music CDs? How many Bible-believing, born again Christians regularly tell not-so-little white lies to avoid uncomfortable truths? How many make the wrong choice when faced with those classic moral dilemmas? Where do we draw the line? If we know the right thing to do and don't do it, to us it is sin. Maybe we selfishly justify what we judge to be permissible. So the line becomes blurred and individualised.

Slapping on a hypocrite label won't do. Dismissing struggling Christians as fakes is delusional. All of the above, and much more, relentlessly eat away at confidence and hope. How can church members collectively thrive when these characteristics are weakened? Each and every local assembly nurses (and suppresses?) a mountain of pain, regret, failure, apathy and secret "sin". Why? Why the appearance of solidity, unity and effectiveness masking the grim reality? Why is human nature so untameable in the very context where it should be subject to the power of God in the presence of godly, sanctified leaders? Those who think they are impervious should take heed in case they too fall. They will at some stage.

If the power of God changes lives and builds strong Christ-exalting churches that accomplish the will of God in the local community, where are they? Is the Bible not clear about this? What should the body of believers be in the world?3 A light? A loving cure? An example? Is it happening? Perhaps the average Bible-believing church embodies the ultimate Hope rendered impotent by a defective instrument.

One of my earliest church memories from the 70s is of an elderly Baptist lady in the pew behind me saying something like, “They shouldn’t allow people like that in here.” What in God's name did she mean? It's likely the scruffy people a couple of rows ahead, the precious people Christ died for, had been invited along to the meeting. They probably didn’t come back and maybe that was good for them.

An island is tempting.

1 In a roundabout way Christians believe that God is ultimately responsible for everything, but remains without blame. He knows the end from the beginning. Before anything was, He knew how everything would be. Unavoidable pain and suffering are a consequence of living in a fallen world. Faith should accept what has happened, no matter how distressing and wretched. Yet, in the context of all things being possible, it's taught that faith in God can turn around upsetting circumstances. Faith and tearful prayers that bring no relief or answers can become an opportunity to trust God. "He knows best," is the conclusion. Christians also believe that trials and afflictions can be God's loving discipline.

The tragic loss of a loved one. An innocent child with terminal cancer. A sobbing relative in a nursing home who soiled herself while waiting for staff to arrive. A catastrophic natural event that quickly claims the lives of many thousands. True faith will be severely tested and must somehow embrace the worst of days. Christians believe that God, in His blameless responsibility and supreme wisdom, allows these things to happen. But despite Christian beliefs, it's clear that many become frustrated and disheartened, unable to accept life's dreadful hardships. They want to believe and have faith, but find they struggle and doubt instead. Life is cruel, unpredictable and apparently random. The Christian whose faith is small will faint in the day of adversity. It's naturally hard to swallow. It's the way life is. And death itself is a wonderful release from the pain and misery God allows.

During periods of stress and suffering God’s love is presumed through faith. But faith in God is often tested when His love and care seem distant and ineffectual. Human love is immediate. It can be practically expressed through touch, tenderness, acts of kindness, nursing care, selfless bedside vigils, caring devotion.

2 Someone once told me that her husband showed her no love and abused her by using her for sexual gratification. Solutions were sought through their church but eventually they separated.

3 If Christ is the foundation of the Church and Christians bricks, then sanctification and holiness should be its mortar.

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