The good news about hypocritical Christians

I grew up around the evangelical Christian subculture. My sister and I were the only kids our age at our church, so I ended up visiting various other youth groups, going to the pizza parties, lock-ins, concerts, and mission trips.

My first-ever concert was Amy Grant with Michael W. Smith as the opener. A few years later, Smith was the headliner with a dynamic up-and-coming opening act called DC Talk that electrified a crowd of teenage Christian kids. Hearing “Flood” by Jars of Clay on secular radio was so exciting that I almost thought the millennial reign of Christ had arrived. I remember seeing my first episode of "VeggieTales" while on a retreat, which is also where I heard “Big House” by Audio Adrenaline for the first time. I was a big fan of Caedmon’s Call in college, particularly enjoying Derek Webb’s gravelly vocals and edgy songwriting.

We are not faced with a binary choice between authenticity and hypocrisy.

As the years have gone by, some of these people have turned out to be hypocrites. Lots of kids looked to them as spiritual role models, not knowing they weren’t who they seemed to be. I hear reports that the contemporary Christian music industry is pretty messed up. Artists whose CDs I purchased now identify as LGBTQ in some way. Some have abandoned all semblance of orthodox Christianity, while others have rejected Christ outright.

The fallout caused by all these defections from the true faith is often blamed on cultural Christianity, which enabled talented people to get paid for entertaining Christian kids. Now that their hypocrisy has been exposed, some have become openly hostile to cultural Christianity altogether.

What a difference a year makes

Here’s a recent example from the last two Easter Holidays.

Last week, the White House issued a number of pro-Christian, Easter-themed posts and videos from President Donald Trump, who openly celebrated the “Resurrection of Jesus Christ" and proclaimed in his hallmark all-caps style, “HE IS RISEN!!”

Last year, Easter happened to coincide with “Transgender Day of Visibility,” which was celebrated by a White House press release. The White House's Easter acknowledgement was quite muted in comparison.

The administration denied any deliberate attempt to subvert Easter with transgenderism, but the graphic design department must not have gotten the memo. The transgender statement had an Easter bunny in the White House logo.

Two Easters, one year apart. What a difference a year makes.

This Easter felt like living in another world compared to last year. Why? Because last year, it felt like the entire culture and our government were hostile to Christianity. This year, Trump proclaimed the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ through the world’s biggest microphone.

Two different White House occupants were leveraging their influence to promote two different visions of “the good” for our society. Whichever vision of “the good” our society adopts can have a great impact on the church and her mission.

Simply put: A society that broadly believes “Transgender Day of Visibility” is worth celebrating will inevitably persecute the faith that condemns it as sin. A society that broadly believes “HE IS RISEN!!” will not.

The hypocrisy of cultural Christianity

I’m sure some people would object that Trump didn’t really mean what he said and was just pandering to his Christian base. They’d say, “He’s not a real Christian! That’s just cultural Christianity! It encourages nominal Christianity and hypocrisy!” For this reason, some say, cultural Christianity is just a celebration of hypocrisy. Thus, insincere overtures celebrating Christianity are wrong and harmful.

Pastor Ray Ortlund, for example, openly celebrated the decline of cultural Christianity in a since-deleted tweet which said, “I rejoice at the decline of Bible Belt Religion. It made bad people worse — in the name of Jesus. Now may we actually believe in Him, so that our churches stand out with both the truth of gospel doctrine and the beauty of gospel culture. To that end, I gladly devote my life.”

In other words, Ortlund presented the issue as a binary choice: You can either have the hypocrisy of “Bible Belt Religion” or you can have “the truth of gospel doctrine.”

Given these options, the choice is clear: We must “rejoice at the decline” of cultural Christianity because that gives rise to “the beauty of gospel culture.”

Hypocrisy vs. persecution

This is a false dichotomy. We are not faced with a binary choice between authenticity or hypocrisy. Rather, we are faced with a different kind of binary: hypocrisy or persecution.

True Christianity can thrive in either condition, but one is better than the other. Let me explain.

Have you noticed that Jesus condemned the sin of hypocrisy far more frequently than the rest of the New Testament? Why is this? The disparity can be explained by the divergent contexts of Jesus’ Jewish-focused ministry and the later church’s Gentile-focused ministry.

The Pharisees feigned godliness as a kind of insincere performance. Hypocrisy is playacting for an audience, and Jesus called them out for it. They were fake. Posers. Insincere. They didn’t really follow God; they had their own agenda. But their personal agendas were enabled by the expectations of the Jewish community they belonged to. They wanted to enjoy the benefits of being Jewish leaders within the Jewish subculture that rewarded them and gave them power.

In other words, hypocrisy only works when there’s an audience that values the genuine faith you’re counterfeiting. Said in another way: Hypocrisy is a byproduct of gospel influence.

When persecution broke out in the early church, Christians fled Jerusalem and scattered into pagan, idol-filled Gentile areas that were more hostile to the gospel (Acts 16:16-23, Acts 19:21-41). Thus, persecution became a major concern that moved more prominently into focus of apostolic teaching.

In other words, persecution is a byproduct of gospel decline.

When Christians are constantly harassed and threatened by hostile forces, faithfulness under persecution replaces hypocrisy as the greater discipleship concern (1 Peter 4:12-14). When everyone hates Christianity, there is no reward for being a fake one. God uses persecution to purify and strengthen his church.

Persecution is not a sacrament

This brings me to a modern tension. Christians are divided as to which is the preferred state of affairs.

Is it better for us to adopt a strict “exile” mentality, where we prefer being a persecuted yet faithful minority? Or is it better to assume Christianity and the culture it produces as a normative good, despite the hypocrisy that inevitably accompanies it?

The “victorious Christian” favors strong, public assertions of Christian truth and morality, knowing that some will parrot the pro-Jesus talking points insincerely.

The “Christian in exile” favors persecution as a purifying agent to rid the church of hypocrisy and all other vestiges of insincerity.

Here's the thing: Hypocrisy is a sin, but it’s not so uniquely intractable that it demands dismantling cultural Christianity and embracing secular hostility as the sole remedy. Put another way, persecution is not a sacrament. We need not seek it as a good in and of itself.

Christians can thrive under persecution, but scripture does not require persecution in order to thrive. That’s a big difference.

Some Christians are afraid that the inevitable hypocrisy that would result from a victorious Christianity is so bad as to spoil any positive good that might come from cultural Christianity. Thus, the church should adopt an embattled minority posture, in which believers are few but true. Persecution is a necessary condition to prove their devotion. Christianity on the whole must lose to prove they’re the ones who really mean it.

I’ve known many people who romanticize the genuineness of the early church that faithfully endured great persecution, or the hardships of third-world missionaries in faraway hostile lands. Those are the real Christians.

What a miserable way to live!

Many Christians face this conundrum with tortured consciences and irrational moral standards while consoling themselves with gospel platitudes. They tell themselves “this is the way of the cross,” “true Christian power often looks like defeat,” and “this is the power and wisdom of God.” Of course, when we lose, we can take comfort in those truths.

But the Bible does not require that we live this way.

Persecution is intended to slow, stop, or reverse the advance of the gospel. It happens because it works. It is very difficult for the gospel seed to bear fruit when it is constantly being choked by thorny soil. People don’t seem to realize that many of our pioneering missionary heroes labored under grueling conditions for years before winning a single convert.

Celebrating persecution as a cure for hypocrisy is like gargling bleach to cure bad breath. Less extreme remedies are preferable.

The blessing of cultural Christianity

Hypocrisy is a sin “in the camp,” so to speak. It is the kind of sin that arises when Christianity is culturally dominant, forming everyone’s expectations, norms, and behaviors, such that it exerts social pressure to conform to Christian standards. The exhortation to a hypocritical person is to be more Christian, not less. Jesus corrected the hypocritical Pharisees by calling them to live more in line with the faith they outwardly professed.

Any gospel field will yield wheat and tares. The most fertile soil for gospel seed is a field already pre-tilled with cultural Christianity. As we have seen in recent decades, some people will present the “appearance of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5), but others will authentically accept Christ as savior and Lord. When insincere people want to enjoy the social benefits of pretending to be Christian, they can be corrected of their hypocrisy and called to live more gospel-aligned lives (Galatian 2:11-14).

Cultural Christianity creates upward pressure that encourages people to outwardly conform to Christian expectations, which is a way of preaching law through social standards that can highlight their sin and need for Christ. Like a zero-entry pool, cultural Christianity helps newer believers observe the Christian life within a community, framing spiritual realities in familiar terms, and pre-evangelizing them in ways that may later produce true faith.

Don’t get me wrong: Cultural Christianity doesn’t save anyone. It can even produce false converts. But many false converts are simply pre-converts who have yet to fully apprehend and apply, by faith, the teaching they’ve received. The Bible Belt religion of the American South, for example, has produced both hypocrisy and spiritual fruit.

In other words, persecution is not the only remedy for hypocrisy. Christianized cultures can amplify gospel impact, and hypocrisy will always be a fruit of thriving Christian communities.

Hypocrisy is inevitable. It will always exist anywhere authentic faith thrives. However, persecution is not inevitable. Cultural Christianity may even be the means God uses to prevent persecution from arising in our society that would threaten to destroy our faithful churches.

Conclusion

As I’ve reflected on the vivid contrast between Biden and Trump’s Easter Week statements the past two years, I’ve found myself being grateful for the political cover of having a president openly celebrating the “crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” It’s good to see the faith that I teach and uphold as a pastor being loudly affirmed in our nation’s highest office.

Ultimately, cultural Christianity is a double-edged sword. It can breed hypocrisy when one’s faith turns performative, yet it can also lay a foundation for the gospel to flourish.

Persecution may be a refining fire, but Christians never celebrate it as an opportunity to demonstrate our Christian sincerity. Persecution is not God’s only tool to correct hypocrisy. Christianity has its own tools of ongoing reform, such as teaching, reproof, correction, and training in the word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

We need not wring our hands about hypocrisy evident in cultural Christianity. We certainly need not pine after persecution as the sole remedy. We faithfully endure persecution, if it comes. Otherwise, we work like crazy to prevent it as much as possible.