According to a recent survey, one of the main reasons that Christian youth leave their churches once they're on their own is because of seeing the lack of credibility in Christian adults. To say it another way, the reason they take leave of the churches of their raising is hypocracy among the grown-ups they've respected.
Before we dismiss this reason out of hand, let's think about it.
Aristotle wrote a guide for public speakers on the subject of persuasion. He said that there are three elements to persuading the listener: 1) the speaker must have a message; 2) the speaker must have a passion for his message; and 3) the speaker must have personal credibility. It's that credibility that leaves no room for hypocracy.
Historically, the greatest example of hypocrisy occurred in a garden, the one called Gethsemane, when Judas betrayed the Lord with a kiss of greeting as if they were friends. Since then, because of such heinous hypocracy, people haven't named their sons "Judas" in over 2,000 years.
In 1998, a writer wrote about a scandal that had erupted about Bill Clinton in the Wall Street Journal: “If he will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public? The private acts of any person are never done in secret. God sees and judges all sin, and while He seeks to restore the offender with love and grace, He does not necessarily remove all the consequences of our sin.”
Those are wise words, words that made the reader think back then when the moral scandal blew up that shocked the nation. But there were those who took an opposite stance about the immoral matter by writing, "That’s for him and his wife to deal with," and going on to tell us, "It's nobody's business."
However, recently scandalous allegations have erupted against the current President, Donald Trump. Writing about the scandal, one author said, “That’s for him and his wife to deal with, it's nobody's business."
OK. We've heard all of that before. But let's look again at the statement in 1998: "If he [Clinton] will lie to or mislead his wife and daughter, those with whom he is most intimate, what will prevent him from doing the same to the American public? The private acts of any person are never done in secret. God sees and judges all sin, and while He seeks to restore the offender with love and grace, He does not necessarily remove all the consequences of our sin.”
Now let's look again at a recent statement about President Trump in 2018: “That’s for him and his wife to deal with, it's nobody's business." We've heard that before, back in 1998.
But what's diffent is this: The statement about Clinton in '98 and the statement about Trump in 2018 were made by the same person. In 1998, the writer said one thing; in 2018, he said the opposite. Where's the credibility in that? In 1998, because the writer didn't like Clinton, he took the position that if he would lie to his family, he'd lie to us and we can't trust him. In 2018, because the same speaker likes Trump, now it becomes a private matter, which he said it wasn't in 1998.
So, what does all this have to do with Christianity and credibility? A great deal. The writer who wrote one thing in 1998 and the opposite in 2018 is Franklin Graham. There's an old saying, "Politics makes strange bedfellows." Or better yet, we might say, "Politics makes strange hypocrites."
Moral: Don't lose your credibility over politics.
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