Over the course of the past months, I've come to distinguish a kind of lifestyle gap that plagues certain segments of my sister and brother Christians. Some folks will label that gap hypocrisy, but I don't think that's quite right.
First, a diagnosis of the lifestyle gap problem. I've lamented here in the recent past that we Christians need to be more concerned about kindness over love. That our lack of respect and concern for others is making being Christian more difficult to the world. As any number of my non-Christian friends see us, there's a negative view of the Christian brand. More specifically, they tend to see Christians as "unChristian" in their attitudes and behaviors.
First, a diagnosis of the lifestyle gap problem. I've lamented here in the recent past that we Christians need to be more concerned about kindness over love. That our lack of respect and concern for others is making being Christian more difficult to the world. As any number of my non-Christian friends see us, there's a negative view of the Christian brand. More specifically, they tend to see Christians as "unChristian" in their attitudes and behaviors.
I've even taken a rather informal census among them. Here are my results. Of my non-Christian friends who also don't identify as other religious:
1. 80% admit to knowing 5 or more Christians.
2. Of those, only 15% admit to noticing a qualifiable difference between being Christian and not.
Specifically, there is a gap between the lifestyle Christians say they live versus the lives they actually live. Phrased negatively, non-Christians fail to see a lifestyle gap between themselves and their Christian friends. Being a Christian doesn't seem to have any impact upon how a person lives.
Now, anyone familiar with the NT knows that this kind of thing drove Jesus nuts. He talks about it often (Matthew 6-7; Luke 6, 12, 16; Mark 6; John 8 all come immediately to mind). So it's a bit worrisome to me that we -- Jesus' followers -- come to be perceived in such a way.
How did this happen? How did we Christians get to the place where we're called hypocrites by those outside the faith? And, more importantly, what do we of about it?
In thinking through those questions, I've come to distinguish between outright lying and what I call "moral crap". Specifically, I want to draw on Harry Frankfurt's work analyzing BS and lying to suggest that Frankfurt's distinction between lying and BS might help us understand the cause of the "lifestyle gap" implicated in Christian hypocrisy.
Summarizing greatly, Frankfurt's analysis is this. Lies and liars are very concerned with truth insofar as they are trying to hide the truth from us. In fact, a necessary condition of a lie is a knowledge of "how things stand", of the truth. But bull crap, according to Frankfurt, is a speech act that is indifferent to truth. A bullcrap-er speaks about things asking us to treat his speech as a legitimate transmission of information. But in reality he neither knows of what he speaks nor is concerned to "get things right".
In other words, a liar thinks he knows the truth. A hypocrite is concerned about concealing it. Someone who's engaging in bullcrap neither knows nor cares. A bullcrapper is neither on any side of truth nor is he all that concerned. Lying is a distortion of truth, whereas bullcrap is an indifference to truth.
This is why I think bullcrap is much wore than lying. Liars at least care for the truth, because they have to know it to try to hide it. Bullcrappers don't. They pick whatever suits them in order to accomplish whatever goal they have in mind.
And, it's here I want to distinguish between hypocrites and the lifestyle gap. Hypocrites are actors. They're covering over something in order to appear a different way. Most non-Christians see the problem as a clear case of hypocrisy. Christians don't live up to their ideals because they are hypocrites. But I want to quibble with this. I think the problem is far worse.
The word hypocrite comes from a Greek word -- hypokritēs -- which means "actor". And the most common definition of a hypocrite is the following: " A person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion". That means hypocrites are liars. Deceit is at the core if hypocrisy.
I live with these Christians, and I don't think any of them are willfully deceptive. Therefore, the label hypocrite doesn't really apply.
But clearly there is a lifestyle gap. If so, what is my explanation for the gap if not hypocrisy? My answer is that we have no good word for what is going on. Hypocrisy, with its notions of intentional deceptiveness, isn't a good word for the phenomenon. The best word I have for the problem is bullcrap, as defined by Frankfurt. The problem with Christians is a kind of moral bullcrap.
The key here is indifference. This indifference to truth is often caused by a kind of laziness, of failing to do the work to "get things right". This is what I see happening among Christians. I don't see a lot of willful hypocrisy, but I do see a lot of talk about righteousness and holiness and compassion with little energy devoted to examining how all that talking is cashing out in the real world. In short, Christians talk a great deal with little effort expended in moving from words to deeds. Outsiders hear all that Christian moral chatter and they also observe the lifestyle gap. The only word they have for what they are observing is hypocrisy, but I think a better word is bullcrap.
Christians stand around bullcrapping about "fruits of the Spirit" -- love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5.22-23) -- when there's hefty moral weight given to judgmentalism and gaming.
Where does that come from? Well, the important disjoint between orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
1. 80% admit to knowing 5 or more Christians.
2. Of those, only 15% admit to noticing a qualifiable difference between being Christian and not.
Specifically, there is a gap between the lifestyle Christians say they live versus the lives they actually live. Phrased negatively, non-Christians fail to see a lifestyle gap between themselves and their Christian friends. Being a Christian doesn't seem to have any impact upon how a person lives.
Now, anyone familiar with the NT knows that this kind of thing drove Jesus nuts. He talks about it often (Matthew 6-7; Luke 6, 12, 16; Mark 6; John 8 all come immediately to mind). So it's a bit worrisome to me that we -- Jesus' followers -- come to be perceived in such a way.
How did this happen? How did we Christians get to the place where we're called hypocrites by those outside the faith? And, more importantly, what do we of about it?
In thinking through those questions, I've come to distinguish between outright lying and what I call "moral crap". Specifically, I want to draw on Harry Frankfurt's work analyzing BS and lying to suggest that Frankfurt's distinction between lying and BS might help us understand the cause of the "lifestyle gap" implicated in Christian hypocrisy.
Summarizing greatly, Frankfurt's analysis is this. Lies and liars are very concerned with truth insofar as they are trying to hide the truth from us. In fact, a necessary condition of a lie is a knowledge of "how things stand", of the truth. But bull crap, according to Frankfurt, is a speech act that is indifferent to truth. A bullcrap-er speaks about things asking us to treat his speech as a legitimate transmission of information. But in reality he neither knows of what he speaks nor is concerned to "get things right".
In other words, a liar thinks he knows the truth. A hypocrite is concerned about concealing it. Someone who's engaging in bullcrap neither knows nor cares. A bullcrapper is neither on any side of truth nor is he all that concerned. Lying is a distortion of truth, whereas bullcrap is an indifference to truth.
This is why I think bullcrap is much wore than lying. Liars at least care for the truth, because they have to know it to try to hide it. Bullcrappers don't. They pick whatever suits them in order to accomplish whatever goal they have in mind.
And, it's here I want to distinguish between hypocrites and the lifestyle gap. Hypocrites are actors. They're covering over something in order to appear a different way. Most non-Christians see the problem as a clear case of hypocrisy. Christians don't live up to their ideals because they are hypocrites. But I want to quibble with this. I think the problem is far worse.
The word hypocrite comes from a Greek word -- hypokritēs -- which means "actor". And the most common definition of a hypocrite is the following: " A person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion". That means hypocrites are liars. Deceit is at the core if hypocrisy.
I live with these Christians, and I don't think any of them are willfully deceptive. Therefore, the label hypocrite doesn't really apply.
But clearly there is a lifestyle gap. If so, what is my explanation for the gap if not hypocrisy? My answer is that we have no good word for what is going on. Hypocrisy, with its notions of intentional deceptiveness, isn't a good word for the phenomenon. The best word I have for the problem is bullcrap, as defined by Frankfurt. The problem with Christians is a kind of moral bullcrap.
The key here is indifference. This indifference to truth is often caused by a kind of laziness, of failing to do the work to "get things right". This is what I see happening among Christians. I don't see a lot of willful hypocrisy, but I do see a lot of talk about righteousness and holiness and compassion with little energy devoted to examining how all that talking is cashing out in the real world. In short, Christians talk a great deal with little effort expended in moving from words to deeds. Outsiders hear all that Christian moral chatter and they also observe the lifestyle gap. The only word they have for what they are observing is hypocrisy, but I think a better word is bullcrap.
Christians stand around bullcrapping about "fruits of the Spirit" -- love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5.22-23) -- when there's hefty moral weight given to judgmentalism and gaming.
Where does that come from? Well, the important disjoint between orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
The root cause of Christian bullcrap is the disjoint between orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the Christian tradition. Specifically, for a variety of reasons, Christianity came to emphasize "right belief" over "right action". Being a Christian meant one believed certain things (e.g., that Jesus was the Son of God). Assenting to these propositions and mastering the God talk that surrounded them grew to define what it meant to be a Christian. But once orthodoxy became separated from orthopraxy the specter of moral bullcrap entered. That is, as Frankfurtian bullcrap is decoupled from truth so Christian belief became decoupled from discipleship. The disjoint didn't (and doesn't) emerge because of willful deception (hypocrisy). Rather, the disjoint was (and is) due to a kind of carelessness, a thoughtlessness that entered the Christian faith.
That, I think, is much worse than hypocrisy. Because Jesus was even more concerned about a moral indifference. The problem with us Christians is that we "talk a good talk", but the walk doesn't measure up.
Let's take just one example. Poverty.
Americans, often under the guide of being Christian, argue for "personal responsibility" in a way that ignores the Christian obligations of mutual responsibility. Matthew 25.31-46 comes immediately to mind.
Non-Christians call us "hypocrites". But I think it's worse than that. I call bullcrap.
That, I think, is much worse than hypocrisy. Because Jesus was even more concerned about a moral indifference. The problem with us Christians is that we "talk a good talk", but the walk doesn't measure up.
Let's take just one example. Poverty.
Americans, often under the guide of being Christian, argue for "personal responsibility" in a way that ignores the Christian obligations of mutual responsibility. Matthew 25.31-46 comes immediately to mind.
Non-Christians call us "hypocrites". But I think it's worse than that. I call bullcrap.