If Christianity Is Good, Why Do Christians Do Bad Things?

Removing Barriers Part Four

Introduction

While talking to people in prison about accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior, I have encountered myriad different responses, some positive, others not so much. Sometimes people say stuff like, “Why should I embrace the religion of the Crusades and the Inquisition?” or “Christians supported slavery, so I will never be a Christian,” or even, “What’s-his-name goes to church with you, and he is a [expletive]. I’m good.” These questions all point back to the same honest question: Why should I become a Christian when I see Christians doing bad things? The logical syllogism might go like this: (1) For a religion to be valid, its adherents should do good things. (2) Christians do bad things. (3) Christianity is invalid as a religion. As Christians, we know that this line of thought breaks down on multiple levels, but how do we “make a defense” to the person asking this question (1 Pet. 3:15 ESV)? This article will offer a three-pronged response to the bad Christians, bad Christianity argument.

Responding to the Bad Christians = Bad Christianity Argument

First, I want you to see that this argument against Christianity hinges upon an unsupported assumption. The questioner assumes that religion should produce morally good events. That assumption begs two questions: Why do you assume that religion should produce morally good events? How do you define morality? Christians believe “good” is what God says it is—God’s moral standard, as defined in the Bible. If there is no God, who sets the standard? The nonbeliever might say, “People decide right from wrong for themselves.” By that subjective definition of morality, how can anyone label slavery or the Crusades as immoral if the purveyors of Crusades and slavery considered the two institutions to be good? In fact, that personal morality leaves no grounds to condemn any choice. Might is right. Then, the nonbeliever might change lanes and define morality as that which best serves the human race as a whole. Who defines what is good for the human race? You? What if someone decided that the best thing for humanity is to exterminate the inferior races? Yikes, I think we fought a war over that. Do you see the intrinsic problem when one rejects God and attempts to moralize? If there is no God, there exists no objective moral framework from which to condemn any decision, including these atrocities that the nonbeliever wants to condemn.

However, the God who is there inspired the writing of the Bible. His Word informs a worldview that defines true morality. In the past, some people have used Christianity to justify certain institutions and practices that contradict Christian ethics. People claiming the Christian name used verses removed from their context to justify so-called holy wars such as the Crusades, forced conversions through the Inquisition, slavery, and other immoral practices. What they did was wrong, no question about it, but that does not make the Bible wrong. In fact, the Bible predicted that people would distort its good teachings for their bad purposes. According to Peter, “False prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Pet. 2:1). Bad people distort the Bible for their own bad purposes. That is what bad people do. They distort stuff. That does not mean Christianity is bad. I know someone who went to prison for attempting to run someone over with a truck. Does that mean that the United States should ban driving?

However, the historical record shows that Christianity has produced more good for the world than bad, if you take the biblical definition of “good.” For every example of people who distorted the Bible to use it to justify evil, there exist more exemplars of Christianity who provoked positive change in the world. Francis of Assisi was a rich man living in Italy. In 1209, after becoming a Christian, he sold all of his possessions, gave the proceeds to the poor, and became an itinerant preacher. Saint Francis’s mantra was “preach Christ at all times; if necessary use words.” Then came Martin Luther, the great reformer of the 1500s, who called a stop to the tyranny of the popes who had lost their way. Luther rebuked, “The church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of brothels, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell, so that not even the Anti-Christ, if he were to come, could devise any addition to its wickedness.” Luther’s followers adopted “sola Scriptura” as their rallying cry. They inspired the church to go back to the basics of Scripture. It was simple to them. People should read the Bible for themselves and do what it says. Martin Luther broke the church’s tyrannical hold on Scripture and brought it to the masses. Before Luther, the Bible was for the priesthood only. Now, you can have Amazon send the Bible to your house in seventeen different English translations.

Think about William Wilberforce in Europe and Frederick Douglass in the United States, devout Christians both who worked to end slavery. Think about Martin Luther King, Jr. whose peaceful protests and preaching resulted in the American revival and passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s. King’s faith compelled him to act. Think of Billy Graham who preached the Gospel in person to over 200 million people in his lifetime, leading who knows how many to God. And, there are countless others. As a matter of fact, if you trace the historical development of Western civilization back to the Roman Empire, you will find that the ethical system underlying Western culture is all Christian. It all traces back to the Bible.

What about the opponents of Christianity who point to the every-day actions of normal Christians with whom they associate, rather than the big atrocities from history? They say, “What’s-his-name calls himself a Christian and goes to church, but he acts worse than I do.” “Hypocrites,” they call us. First of all, this is the main reason why we Christians need to model good Christlike behavior. Peter instructed, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God” (1 Pet. 2:12). We need to be like Francis of Assisi and preach Christ with our actions. On the other hand, every person, including the Christians, is a human sinner. Pastor Todd Wright at Midway Church has said one thousand times that the church is a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints. If the nonbeliever wants to call us Christians hypocrites, then let him know that he will fit in just fine.

The fact that we fall short of perfection is the whole point anyway. As Christians, we acknowledge our inability to become perfect and thank Jesus for loving us anyway. Then, with His help, we work to get better every day. In the immortal words of Tim McGraw, “I ain’t as good as I’m gonna get, but I’m better than I used to be.” Tell the critic this: If you think ole what’s-his-name is bad now, you should have seen him before the Holy Ghost got ahold of him. He has actually come a long way. Sanctification is a process, and frankly some people have further to go in their moral development than others. Consider an atheist woman who was raised in an affluent two-parent home, and compare her to a new Christian who maybe bounced around foster homes until the system spit him out onto the streets at age eighteen. Although the new convert may be closer to God, the atheist will probably have better manners. This difference does not indict Christianity as much as it demonstrates the fallen nature of humanity, which is actually a central tenet of Christianity. When you observe Christians falling short of perfection, that observation supports the Christian emphasis on our need for God’s saving grace. To say, “I am not going to become a Christian because Christians do bad things” misses the whole point of the gospel. We all do bad things; Christians are just honest enough to admit it!

Conclusion

Here is the main point of this discussion: the Bible is true, regardless of who is thumping it. Unbelievers who blame immoral Christians for their refusal to embrace the teachings of the Bible have fallen prey to the genetic fallacy. In other words, they have irrationally conflated the truth of a statement with the likability of the person making the statement. To ascertain truth, you have to investigate the statement, not the person. When nonbelievers say, “Christianity is bad since Christians do bad things,” we can lovingly direct that person to the truth in three ways. First, help them understand that unbelievers cannot coherently deny the existence of God based on the existence of immorality because without God, no moral foundation exists from which to adjudicate morality. Second, immoral people ignore biblical precepts when they commit immoral actions, regardless of whether or not they happen to call themselves Christians. The Christian faith described in the Bible is good. Unfortunately, sometimes Christians do not act very much like Christians, which leads to the final point. Although Jesus promised to make His followers more like Him, that sanctification is a lifelong process that will remain incomplete this side of Heaven. Thank you, Jesus, for saving us anyway.

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