Cold Case Christianity: Yes, Christian hypocrisy falsifies some New Testament promises

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: 

Quick Shot: “Christian hypocrisy proves Christianity is false”

Posted: 14 Jan 2019 01:10 AM PST

Our “Quick Shot” series offers brief answers to common objections to the Christian worldview.

Thus increasing the chances that the Christian reader will be misled by a superficial treatment of the issues.

Each response is limited to one paragraph.

Somehow, I'm not feeling threatened by your apologetics.

These responses are designed to (1) answer the objection as concisely as possible, (2) challenge the objector to think more deeply about his or her claim, and (3) facilitate a “gospel” conversation.

So if an atheist did something similar and offered the reader a response that (1) answers the Christian objection as concisely as possible, (2) challenges the Christian objector to think more deeply about his or her claim, and (3) facilitate an "unbeliever" conversation, you would agree that this shows objectivity on the part of the atheist.

In this article, we’re offering “Quick Shot” responses to the objection, Quick Shot: “Christian hypocrisy proves Christianity is false.”

Response #1:

“Does atheist hypocrisy prove atheism is false?

No.  But if we claimed atheism was guided by a higher intelligence that wasn't 'god', and that as long as you are sincere in seeking out and living by that intelligence, your life will be morally transformed, then the better the evidence that a person was a "real" atheist, and the better the evidence that no serious moral transformation has taken place despite their years of being a committed atheist, then the more likely it would be that atheism was false.  The problem would not be limited to the individual person failing to live up to their professed standard.  The standard itself would appear to be false.  In the case of other atheists who did undergo a moral transformation, this would not show that the intelligence causing the moral transformation existed, because such a change would be explainable in purely naturalistic terms not requiring the positing of any higher intelligence.

By the way, Jesus apparently wanted unbelievers to conclude Christianity was true from the fact that his disciples consistently followed his morals:

 16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:16 NAU)

That means Jesus wasn't really smart, otherwise, under the same principle, non-atheists should glorify atheism if they find atheists walking according to "atheist morals".

If Christianity did not assure its followers that they are transformed, you wouldn't be having a problem.

If a scientist lies about his findings, does this undermine all scientific endeavors, or just expose a single hypocrite?

 If the scientist claims to be guided by an omniscient invisible and 100% honest space alien, how long would you trifle about the fact that his dishonesty doesn't necessarily disprove the existence of the honest space alien?  Not long.

All of us are hypocritical in some way; it’s part of our human condition. We are consistently inconsistent, some more than others. This says less about our respective belief systems than it does about our human condition.

Unless the belief system you pretend to follow insists that you'll stop sinning if you are truly born again.  It does:

 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. (1 Jn. 3:6 NAU)

Wallace continues:

I won’t hold the inconsistent behavior of some atheists against atheism as a whole, if you don’t hold the inconsistent behavior of some Christians against Christianity as a whole. Does that sound fair?

No, atheism has never made claims that it causes its followers to become more morally conservative.  If you delete the parts of the bible that assure Christians of a new morally conservative nature in Christ, then bunches of Christians sinning wouldn't operate to falsify Christianity.

So technically, Christians sinning obviously doesn't operate to deny the historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead (which is very weak on historical grounds anyway),  but their sinning DOES falsify portions of Christianity that promise the believer that they won't sin.  Yes, 1st John makes room for the possibility of Christians sinning, but that does not automatically require that we become obligated to harmonize the "you won't sin" stuff with the "you might sin" stuff and accept any logically possibly harmonization scenario.

I see nothing wrong with assuming the author of 1st John was like most of today's Christians...he held to an inconsistent theology.

Isn’t it more important to examine the evidence for our claims than to critique each other’s misbehavior?”

Yes, I think so, but not according to Jesus, who takes the possibility of others critiquing his follower's behavior, as a motive for them to act righteously so they don't give the critics an excuse: 

  46 "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
 47 "If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
 48 "Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5:46-48 NAU)

  28 "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
 29 "Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
 30 saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' (Lk. 14:28-30 NAU)

 Apostle Paul also felt possible critique from unbelievers was a reason to avoid certain behavior:

 23 Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? (1 Cor. 14:23 NAU)

Wallace continues:

Response #2:

“Why would you be surprised when a Christian behaves hypocritically? There are two reasons why Christians will always be considered more hypocritical than non-Christians. First, our worldview is public and objective rather than private and subjective. Non-Christians understand the standard Christians are trying to personify. It is publicly available (just read a Bible) and hasn’t changed in two thousand years.

One has to wonder about the allegedly changeless text of the bible over the centuries. It certainly hasn't proven itself to be of any benefit to the churches using it, which disagree with each other on nearly every bit of theology taught therein, except perhaps God's existence and Jesus' gender.  God is like the stupid father who tries to assure his daughter she can get to college reliably, with a new car...but never gives her the keys.

We ask the same question of Catholics and their papal infallibility doctrine:  How exactly has papal infallibility or the changeless nature of the biblical text resulted in any theological benefit to Christians?  Doesn't their ceaseless division over interpretation and bible doctrine thwart any good the changeless nature of the text might otherwise have bequeathed?

Christians, however, have no idea if an unbeliever is violating his or her moral standard because the unbeliever holds it privately as a matter of personal opinion.

 That's not true of most unbelievers.  They all have friends and family who recognize that person's unique morality.  Unbelievers are often involved in personal relationships where a moral act by one of them causes more intimacy or even division.  Saying unbelievers keep their morality hidden is total bullshit.

But Christians have a more difficult problem because it doesn't matter if the NT ethics are publicly known, Christians disagree with them.  Smart Christians realize not all stealing is sin, not all lying is sin,  not all intimate contact before marriage is sin, and dumb Christians seriously argue that the NT doesn't condemn homosexuality.  No, it is far from clear that a Christian's committment to the NT thus arms his critics with potential to critique him.  He can do away with anything in the bible he doesn't like, through the artifice of interpretation.  And after that point, he isn't acting contrary to NT ethics, because you either misunderstand the NT, or you don't realize that those 1st standards no longer apply 21st century Christians.

Secondly, the Christian standard is grounded in the perfect moral nature of God.

All you are doing now is preaching to your classical theist choir.  You wouldn't be able to get away with this if you were talking to a bunch of Christians who denied god's perfection, such as open-theists.

While atheists can meet their own personal standards, Christians never achieve the moral perfection of God’s standard.

Which makes them stupid for trying.  How long will you try to jump 200 feet in the air utilizing no other propulsion mechanism than your own unaided biological muscular strength...before you decide that the impossibility of ever achieving the goal constitutes good reason to give up?  4 days?

And lets not forget the many Christians who have tried the conservative approach and failed because their genetics cause them to find normative human behavior too enticing to resist.

We know – in advance- that we will always fall short of the mark.

Probably because you don't know your NT very well.  Several passages express or imply that human beings can actually achieve all that God requires of them.  See Luke 1:6:

 5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
 6 They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. (Lk. 1:5-6 NAU)

 Really?  God thought they were righteous because they walked blamelessly in all his commands?  Wouldn't that contradict Romans 3:10-23?   No, of course not.  If the asshole defense attorney can think of a logically possible way to reconcile evidence of his client's guilt, with his own theory that his client is innocent, well then gee, the jury has no choice but to see things his way or admit their own stupidity...right?

Given the objectively high, public standard posited by Christianity,

 Correction, posited by your particular fundamentalist form of Christianity.  Many other Christians, with good reason, are far more relaxed about sin.  Like James Patrick Holding, whose 20 years of internet apologetics still has him engaging in the sin of slandering even more than he did when he first started.  I'm waiting for the day when Holding writes an article entitled "Why Jesus might want you to tell lies about other people".

why would you ever be surprised to witness Christian hypocrisy,

because the NT makes very plain that those who sin are hypocrites who never knew Jesus:

 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. (1 Jn. 3:6 NAU)

 But actually we aren't surprised when Christians sin, we just note that it often conflicts with what the particular hypocrite professes to believe about his own moral obligations under Christ.

and why would you hold this against Christianity, rather than applaud Christianity for its high standard?”

Remove the "be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind" bullshit from the NT, then sinful Christians won't falsify Christianity's promise to morally transform people.

While atheists can meet their own personal standards, Christians never achieve the moral perfection of God’s standard.

 Wrong, Luke 1:6.