Fake Christians

Charles Barkley was obviously commenting on Conservative Republicans but as he went on, you could hear a change in his target and he went from Conservatives to Christians. The first thing we need to clear up is that just because you are conservative, it doesn’t make you a Christian. Additionally, just because you are Christian, it doesn’t make you a Conservative.

But we don’t want this to be a political conversation. We want to address Mr. Barkley’s comments about Christians. These are the statements he makes about Christians:

Christians want to be judge and jury

• Not supposed to judge other people
• Most hypocritical
• Not forgiving
• Should read the part about…they forget that one when it doesn’t fit what they want to say

Is Barkley alone in thinking this? Do other non-Christians think this as well? Are they right? If you ask me, I think that many other non-Christians think this. I think a lot of them do not want to hear what we have to say because they think we are judgmental, unforgiving and hypocritical. If someone who you thought was judgmental, unforgiving and hypocritical were to come up to you and ask you to listen to what they have to say about something as important as your worldview, you probably wouldn’t take the time to listen to them either.

However, there are also non-Christians who see things differently:

"It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian," laments Roy Hattersley, a columnist for the U.K. Guardian. An outspoken atheist, Hattersley came to this conclusion after watching the Salvation Army lead several other faith-based organizations in the relief effort after Hurricane Katrina.

"Notable by their absence," he says, were "teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers' clubs, and atheists' associations—the sort of people who scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity." According to Hattersley, it is an unavoidable conclusion that Christians "are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others."

Hattersley also notes that this pattern of behavior goes beyond disaster relief:

Civilized people do not believe that drug addiction and male prostitution offend against divine ordinance. But those who do are the men and women most willing to change the fetid bandages, replace the sodden sleeping bags, and—probably most difficult of all—argue, without a trace of impatience, that the time has come for some serious medical treatment.

"The only possible conclusion," says Hattersley, "is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make [Christians] morally superior to atheists like me." - Roy Hattersley, "Faith Does Breed Charity," Guardian.co.uk( 9-12-05);

So there we have it. Two non-Christians with two very different views of how Christians act. Can they both be right? Yes and no. There are those who would call themselves Christians who would rather hate those that oppose them than love. There are those who call themselves Christians who would rather attend to their own happiness than the troubled lives of others. So if you were to judge based on people’s own identification of themselves, then you could absolutely see how there are Christians who fall into Barkley’s categories of judgmental, unforgiving hypocrites. However, not everyone who calls themselves Christians really are. Because you can be sitting in church everyday and not know who Jesus Christ is. If you don’t know who Christ is, you really can’t call yourself a Christian. So on the other hand, if you know Christ, in other words if you are a real Christian, you should be walking in Him (Col 2:6). If you are walking in Him, you may still fall, but your daily walk should overcome those times when you fall short and even a hateful anti-Christian would be hard-pressed to fault you.

So what does it take to walk in Him? Romans 12 gives us a great treatment of the things we need to do.

V2 tells us that we should have the mind of Christ, that we should not have the mind of the world. By doing this, we will have an understanding of God’s will.

V9-21 have a list of behaviors that are not of the world and are of a transformed mind.

V4-8 has a list of gifts that we have and how we are to use them

V3 tell us to be humble and to put God and others first

V1 tells us that our worship to God is to sacrifice ourselves and to do these things

Unfortunately, America today has become very opinionated. The news is no longer filled with facts but with opinions. The Internet is so popular because everyone can publish their opinions. The problem with opinions is that once someone has one, it is very hard to change it. People can change their opinions but it is a slow process that has to start with the recognition that we might be wrong about our opinion.

So we now live in a country that for the present time allows us to worship God and practice our Christianity but has brought the boundaries in so far that many of the rights that we had just 50 years ago are no longer available to us. The opinion of America is no longer a Christian worldview but a secular one. God didn’t create the universe, a big bang happened by accident. God didn’t create life, it happened by accident. The Church is a boring place with nothing relevant to me. Christians are a bunch of hypocrites. More and more, we’re coming to statements like, Christians have no right saying that. Christians have no right having that. Christians have no right thinking that.

So what do we do about this? We can sit here and say, “This is wrong” or “It’s not true”. As we watched the movie “Revelation” on Friday night, I recognized that there will come a time when the government will be run by anti-Christian people. I’m not talking about non-Christian people, people who aren’t Christian but do really care what others might believe. I’m talking about anti-Christians – people who are against Christians and want to see them shut up, shut down and silenced. Charles Barkley wants to run for Governor of Louisiana and we just heard what he thinks about Christians. Barkley has always had a big mouth and has always said what he thinks – give him credit for that. But if you think he is the only anti-Christians who is seeking office, you are mistaken.

Send mail to david@TheArkNY.org with questions about the church or comments about this site.
Last modified: Aug 23, 2009

The Ark Church - Ronkonkoma, Suffolk County, NY - A non-denominational church for Jesus Christ