Have you ever had someone question the legitimacy of your faith because of the scandalous behavior of someone else who identified as a Christian? The media accusing a Christian of misbehavior is an all too frequent occurrence and sadly, the accusations often appear completely justified. This often serves to reinforce hostile attitudes towards Christianity in general; in the minds of many skeptics Christians are nothing more than a bunch of “holier than thou” hypocrites who gleefully condemn others while engaging in the same type of behavior they condemn. How can a Christian respond to this type of accusation? If a Christian is exposed as a hypocrite, does this say something bad about the whole of Christianity itself? The answer is: No! It needs to be understood that bad behavior by individuals within a group do not demonstrate that the group itself is bad. As it pertains to Christianity there are two simple ways to illustrate this:
Jesus firmly denounced hypocrisy. If you don’t like hypocrisy, then you should actually be attracted to the teachings of Jesus, because Jesus didn’t like hypocrites either, especially religious ones!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Matthew 23:27-28
Jesus could not be clearer on his disapproval of hypocrisy! Using the occurrence of hypocritical behavior of Christians to justify a condemnation of the Christian faith as a whole actually reveals a fundamental ignorance of what Jesus taught. It merely demonstrates that the skeptic doesn’t properly understand what it is that they are condemning.
Unreasonable and illogical thinking: the part does not stand for the whole, otherwise known as the “composition/division fallacy”. Just because there are bad humans it does not follow that all humans are bad! Thinking that a few bad apples are an accurate representation of all apples is an all too common example of illogical thinking that is often seen in politics and mainstream media. For instance; just because there are some corrupt police officers who clearly abuse their authority does not mean that all police officers are corrupt and abusive of the authority given them. Yet the idea that all police are bad and all police departments should be defunded is gaining wide acceptance by many in our society, especially by many of our politicians and many within our media (again – does this mean all politicians and all media are doing this? No!). This kind of thinking is an example of poor reasoning and the absence of logic. Another example of this kind of unreasonable thinking is when someone points to a Christian who has just been caught doing something bad and says: “See, that’s why I’m not a Christian! They are just a bunch of hypocrites!” The problem of hypocrisy is a universal problem that is true of all of humanity. Any group, if it is comprised of human beings, will have some members of that group who are in some way inconsistent with the professed attitudes and actions of the group as a whole. Such inconsistent behavior of some members within the group is not a legitimate indictment of the group itself. It is unreasonable and illogical to think otherwise.