Theology

Fake Christians and Politics

We have probably heard the term “fake Christian” thrown around more in the past few years than the decades before. Liberal or progressive Christians are called “fake Christians” by conservative Christians, and conservative Christians are called “fake Christians” by the liberal or progressive Christians. Christians from both sides are increasingly looking at the Trump administration and referring to many people there as “fake Christians.”

While it may seem at first that these accusations do nothing but prove “both sides are equally bad” to some, I do understand where the need to determine who is or is not a “true” Christian comes from. All of our societal sociocultural groupings have standards, rules, and/or regulations for what counts as being “part” of that group. You can’t go and eat chicken while proclaiming “I am vegan!” for example. Words have meaning, those word describe our groupings, and we should have some say in telling people when they are misusing terms or claiming to be something they are not.

Also, we know that “being fake” has historically been a part of our cultural interactions. If a person acts like a friend, or the life of the party, or anything else they are not, they get referred to as being “so fake.” Whether it is because they are a “backstabber” in our opinion, or trying too hard to be a part of a social group they are initially not a part of, we are used to hearing the term “fake” used to describe people that are not being what they claim to be. This is nothing new.

Obviously it gets a little more complicated when applying the term “fake” to whether or not someone is a Christian, because really the main thing that makes one a Christian is belief in Jesus. Well… kind of, depending on who you talk to. There is then the whole process of sanctification and following Jesus. Sometimes your actions indicate you really don’t believe, while other times they indicate you really don’t understand fully. It’s all very complicated: some believe in “once saved always saved,” so there is nothing you can do to no longer be a Christian. Unless you renounce it, some say (but even a renouncement doesn’t count to some views). To others, even Christians have to ask forgiveness for their sins before they are washed away, others say all future sins were washed away at the salvation. Then there are others that say you lose your salvation, maybe because of suicide, or the unforgivable sin, or sometimes just because you “back-slide” so much that so much sin piles up and you lose it all. Then there are those that claim that some people pretended to pray a prayer of salvation but didn’t mean it, or just wanted the social look of holiness without making any personal sacrifice. And so on.

So really, what counts as being a “fake” Christian or a “real” Christian is in the eye of the beholder.

But wait! some would say: the Bible tells us that we have to determine who is real or fake, and how to tell which they are. Yes, there are some verses that tell Christians they can determine whether people really are Christians or not (Matthew 7:21-23, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, James 1:26, Romans 16:17-18, 1 Corinthians 5:11-13, etc), and even some limited guidance on how to kind of do that.

Despite all of this, I would still recommend that you not go there. Yes, it is acceptable in society to define boundaries between different groups, and to even to delineate why your group is different from others. But yes, even despite that and even though the Bible even tells you can, I would say its still not a good idea. Many things are permissible, but not all are beneficial as a good idea.

Some people have very good, defined reasons for why you can’t call Mike Pence or Donald Trump or Barack Obama a “fake” Christian. However, many of these reasons ignore the simple fact that all groups can, in fact, determine the rules for the boundaries of their group… even if many factions of that group end up disagreeing.

Others would say that brushing away all examples of bad behavior by Christians as “fake” Christianity ends up giving the impression that Christians never do anything bad. This is a real concern, and many people in the Church do need to wise up to the fact that there are people that do bad things while still very much being an actual Christian.

Sometimes this brushing away of all bad deeds under the banner of “fake Christianity” is seen as an enabling factor that allows abuse to go unaddressed in Churches. It is true that many people hide behind the banner of “they couldn’t be doing anything wrong because they are such a good person.” Or even “they did something bad, so they never were a real Christian, so they are no longer our problem.” These are real problems in the church, but they are ones that are deeper than the term “fake Christian.” In reality, the deeper problem of ignoring abuse in the Church is merely using the the real/fake Christian debate as a shield. If you could somehow ban the term “fake Christian” tomorrow, abusers in the Church would move to a different shield. We need to confront the underlying problem, but focusing on the concept this abuse is currently hiding under won’t really change much.

Besides, we should recognize that the term “fake Christian” is not always used as a way to talk about people we don’t like (in politics or real life). Here in the South at least, a common sermon point is that one can be “a really good person, but a fake Christian.” The idea that one is “fake” is not always tied to being a bad person in all circles.

Additionally, some people say that calling some a “fake Christian” is a No True Scotsman fallacy. The problem is that No True Scotsman is a pretty weak informal fallacy that misunderstands social norming. The main point of this fallacy comes from a hypothetical Scotsman saying “no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.” Someone else might say “well my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge.” Then the first person responds with “well no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.” It is considered a fallacy because Uncle Angus is a Scotsman, this proving the first statement untrue. However, the main final claim is not that Uncle Angus is not a real Scotsman, but that he falls out of the social norms of what true Scotsman are required to adhere to as a group. He is still a Scotsman, just not a true Scotsman. Some see that as changing the parameters after a counterargument is made, but in reality it is just a clarification of what was meant in the first place.

But No True Scotsman only really applies when referring to at least one factor that is a scientific fact, like being born a Scotsman. The concept of a “fake Christian” doesn’t fall under the No True Scotsman informal fallacy because it completely relies on choices and actions related to those choices. If you replace “Scotsman” with “Vegan” and “sugar on porridge” with “eats meat,” you see how quickly the entire concept of the No True Scotsman fallacy falls apart if applied to beliefs instead of actions and heritage.

However, while it seems like I am making a pretty good case that it is okay to call people “fake Christians,” I would still come to the end of all of this and say: don’t do it. If you want to point out that some one who claims to follow the Bible is going against one of its commands, that is one thing. But dismissing them as a fake Christian? I would avoid that.

Why? Well, because it is so complicated. I covered many of the different beliefs in the Church today about what makes one a Christian or not several paragraphs above. It is a long list of contradictory ideas that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the different ways to view what it means to be a Christian. The person you think is a “fake” Christian may interpret the Bible differently than you do. They may sincerely be doing what they think is right. Or they might be doing something wrong, while determined to ask for forgiveness later. They may not know much about what the Bible has to say. They might truly be a bad person and a Christian. The Bible makes it clear that Paul himself did things he knew were wrong (Romans 7:15-20).

Even looking at all of the scriptures I quoted above, it is clear that the Bible writers meant for us to spend a lot of time and due diligence in determining whether a person really is a Christian or not. Tweeting out “Fake Christian!” every time John Piper or Robert Jeffress says something that doesn’t match with your understanding of the Bible (as much as I would probably agree with you personally) does not count as that level of diligence. And even then, most of the time the Bible just tells you to ignore and avoid that person more than anything else. There are times to speak up and disagree, especially when dealing with public statements by public figures. We all have a voice and should use it. But I think there are much better ways to disagree with evil in the world that are more effective than screaming “fake Christian!”

Instinct and Morality

For better or worse, the murder of innocent children is a contentious debate topic between Atheists and Christians. This is usually in relation to Old Testament commands from God, and how modern people should “instinctively know that premeditated / brutal murder of innocent children is wrong.” A lot could be said about whether events recorded in the Old Testament really happened or not, but that is a post topic for another time. I wanted to briefly dig into how “instinct” is mis-used here.

Whether killing children is wrong or not is a question of morality, not instinct. Instinct is a pattern of behavior in response to stimuli. Instinct would not look at a child and say “it is wrong to kill this child, so I won’t.” Instinct would kill the child if it was perceived as a threat, or otherwise just leave the child be. To instinct, murder is not right or wrong – it is only a response to certain stimuli.

This is important because we have to realize that morality is not something we are born with like instinct. Morality is a social construct that we can give a definition for at any given time, but that definition also changes over time. The people that recorded the premeditated / brutal murder of children in the Bible did so because their social construct of morality at the time did not see this as wrong, or even “brutal” per se. Again, this is a huge topic to explore, as the ancient world was often dog-eat-dog, might-makes-right, you-died-too-bad-who cares. But the reality is that they had a different moral standard back then.

The point being: morality is not some absolute truth that we are just now figuring out the one right construct to apply to it. In order for there to be one right moral code that we have to figure out as a species, morality would have to be a rational being that can understand thousands of languages and historical culture changes in order to let us collectively know what is “morally correct.” In other words, in order for there to be a universal morality, this morality would have to be able to understand new inventions like the Internet, and let us know how moral codes apply to our actions there. It would also have to have learned English at some point in order for us in America to understand it, as well as for it to understand the unique way Americans think about morality in our language.

Some would say that this is proof that God exists. Well, not really. it just proves that you can’t reject the idea of God while relying on the concept of “Universal Morality” as a global guide for humanity. Universal Morality would need to be a rational being – i.e., a god – in order to do so.

The more accurate way to look at morality is that it is a social construct that is evolving all the time. For example, the ancient Israelites had a different moral view on the killing of innocent children than we do now. Did you know that term “genocide” wasn’t coined until the 1940s as a way to describe the atrocities committed by Germany in World War II? Why didn’t Universal Morality have us label it a thing before that? Because Universal Morality is not a thing – we evolved the social construct of morality to say that this thing Germany did was wrong, and then we gave it a new word (genocide).

I know that some people are really convinced that across all time and all cultures, certain moral codes have remained true. Kind of… but also not really. It is true only if you generalize these concepts to gloss over important cultural norms. But that was not day-to-day reality for most people that had to live with those norms, and there are also still big differences across the globe and back through time. Overgeneralizing practical morality to derive Universal (historical and cultural) Morality erases cultural differences than made each culture unique.

It also means that in 100 years, people will look back at even the most enlightened among us and say “wow, did they get morality wrong!”

To me, this does not prove God exists in the least, but it also makes it pretty inappropriate to take 2019 Western American sociocultural normed moral codes and apply them as proof for or against God or Goddess or gods or supreme beings. Calling your sociocultural moral codes “instinct” is just passing the buck to some nonexistent Universal Morality or Supreme Being, claiming that one of these genetically programmed you to believe what is right and wrong. You and I need to take responsibility for how we have been influenced by our modern sociocultural context, and how we have chosen to follow those influences as a guide for what we do or do not believe in.

Narcigesis (and other obscure big words used to attack progressives) are all Relative

An older term (“narcigesis”) has popped up again – from the root word narcissus mixed with eisegesis. Typically, any word ending in -egesis usually just boils down to “you believe something I don’t, so you are wrong because BIG WORD says so!” That is also the case with narcigesis, which I will copy this definition here for those that don’t want to click over to the link:

  1. The reading of one’s own life experiences and/or that of another’s life experience into the text of Scripture; the need to make the Bible all about themselves.
  2. An interpretation of Scripture based on the interpreter’s self-authority, particularly driven by self-esteem, self-actualization, mystical experiences and/or the interpreter’s “felt needs.” (See Sola Experientia.)
  3. A personal and/or mystical interpretation of Scripture based on the interpreter’s own ideas, biases, opinions, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, experiences, impressions, dreams, revelations, or the like, rather than based upon the plain meaning of the text.
  4. The reading of one’s own doctrinal theories into Scripture (as opposed to exegesis, which is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text or portion of biblical text), particularly as a result of personal experience. (See Sola Experientia.)
  5. Self-centered, self-defined and self-authenticating biblical interpretation, application and counsel.
  6. The reading of one’s own interpretation into Scripture based upon the egotistic belief that all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; and that only the learned, the elect, or the leadership elite (of which the interpreter considers himself), may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them. (See Plura Scriptura.)
  7. The egotistical drive to invent new theologies, doctrines, revelations, applications and philosophies about Scripture, often manifested in self-aggrandizement activities such as book publishing, conferences, setting up organizations and websites, money-making schemes and publicity drives.

As a very conservative Assembly of God Bible teacher once said, “anyone that claims that there is a ‘plain meaning of the text’ is not being intellectually honest about the complexities of translation.” Now, to be clear, It is not about having to be “learned, the elect, or the leadership elite” to understand, it is just that everyone that is not fluent in Greek and Hebrew has to rely on translators to know what scripture says, and those translators frequently disagree with each other even on key passages. And therefore, even if you know the languages, you still have to pick which of the various sides of these debates to go with on many scriptures.

In reality, what that means is 1 – 7 above are all relative. For instance, after college I took #4 seriously and set aside all the things the evangelical church had taught me, took a long, hard, exegesis / critical examination of the whole Bible, and ended up rejecting several evangelical teachings because of it. I had no desire to go that way, but exegesis led me to those positions. Yet many of my church friends from that time claim that I am reading my own experiences, stroking my self-esteem, self-centered, inventing new theories, etc. Current church friends of mine disagree – they think I am following the clear text. We usually label what we agree with as clear, and reject anything else as narcigesis or heresy or what have you.

In other words, Christians usually have to rely on their own feelings, their own understandings, their own theories, their own ego, etc in order to claim that others are doing the same. In order to prove that someone else is doing so, one has to pick a translation of the Bible first – one that is going to reflect the bias and ego of its translators and the side of various linguistic arguments those translators chose to follow. Then you are going to filter that translation through your own bias and feelings. Its pretty naive to say that we can get through all of these barriers and claim “plain meaning” as if all of these choices don’t exist and we speak as a direct conduit straight from God’s mouth.

metamodern-faith-avatarIn many ways, this link is like an organized list of how many of us have been judged, misunderstood, and ostracized for thinking critically about and ultimately leaving the realm of evangelicalism. Narcigesis is not the word we are looking for, it is a word that represents the last bits of modernism left in churches trying to judge postmodernist scripture interpretation even though it sorely misses the mark in doing so.