Mahatma Gandhi once famously said of the Christian faith: “I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Gandhi wasn’t the only one to read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s life and find one of the most compelling and interesting figures in ancient literature. Imagine for a moment that everything you knew about Christ was taken from the Gospels, and that you had a reasonable level of trust in the historicity of these documents. You might conclude that Jesus was overwhelmingly merciful, kind, compassionate and gracious. You might notice that Jesus had a propensity to criticize people and institutions that were established to oppress and despotize. You might notice that injustice and the misuse of power angered Jesus. You might observe that Jesus regarded women and children with a counter-cultural level of dignity and respect. You might even decide that he was a miracle-working healer.
You may or may not be able to take the leap to believing he was the very Son of God, but you would, at least, conclude he was a good man who lived a compelling life and died a heroic death.
However, the reality is, for most people, what we believe about Jesus, comes to us through the filter of people who say they know Christ — Christians. Gandhi’s scathing assessment was that far too often Christians don’t represent Christ. They are nothing like Christ. They don’t do Christ justice. They actually repel people from Christ.
Was Gandhi onto something?
What Research Tells Us
In 2017, McCrindle Research conducted a comprehensive survey of the spiritual landscape of Australia — a nation that typifies the post-Christian attitudes of the Western World. Over a thousand adults were quizzed on their perceptions of Jesus, the church and Christianity in general.
In this survey, McCrindle asked the participants to identify both the issues that were most likely to prevent them from exploring Christianity, and the behaviors that they observed in Christians, that were most likely to prevent them from exploring Christianity.
The results make for both interesting and troubling reading. If you were to summarize it, you would be forced to conclude that it is not Christ that repels people from belief, but supposedly Christian dogma, systems, behaviors and attitudes.
Here is what the research tells us:
The Behavior Blockers
Non-Christians were asked what behaviors they observed in Christians that were most likely to prevent them from exploring Christianity. Respondents were able to select more than one option. Here is what they said.
Number 1: Child Abuse
57% of respondents identified child abuse as the number one behavior blocker to exploring Christian faith. Now, obviously the overwhelming majority of Christians are not child abusers. However, the reputation of Christians has suffered terribly at the hands of a small minority.
Few topics elicit more emotion and outrage from the public than sexual abuse committed by Christian leaders, and for good reason. The best available data reports that 4 percent of Catholic priests sexually violated a minor during the second half of the 20th century with the peak level of abuse being in the 1970s.
Putting clergy abuse in context though, research from the US Department of Education found that about 5–7 percent of public school teachers engaged in similar sexually abusive behavior with their students during a similar time frame. Yet, teachers are not automatically associated with child abuse in the same way that priests are.
Don’t get me wrong. Child abuse is abhorrent in all its forms. However, I think that the main reason we find it particularly abhorrent in church leaders is that there is an expectation of the highest level of integrity from those who purport to represent God himself. Fair enough! When you establish yourself as morally superior, you have much further to fall if you fail to meet that standard.
There is nothing that the church can do to change the past. It can only do its best to prevent child abuse in the future, but I suspect that it will take many decades for the wounds to heal — if indeed they ever do.
Number 2: Hypocrisy
47% of respondents said that the hypocrisy they observed in Christians was a major blocker to exploring Christian faith. To be fair, everyone is a hypocrite to some extent, right? I mean, what person meets the standards that they set for themselves all the time? So, why is hypocrisy such a turn off in Christians?
Once again, I think the problem begins when Christians think or act as though they possess some kind of moral superiority that they have acquired by default, simply through intellectual assent to someone’s interpretation of some Biblical truths. If you loudly proclaim your beliefs, and sometimes force them on others, you had better live in a way that supports those claims.
At my workplace, there is a person who is loudly and proudly a born-again Christian — a fact that they are more than happy to share. They are also the kind of gossip-mongering, rumor-spreading, corner-cutting, brown-nosing, sluggard that no one really likes working with. If you’re going to proclaim your faith out loud, fine! Just make sure your life matches up!
Number 3: Religious Wars
45% of respondents said that religious wars were a major blocker to exploring Christian faith. This is perhaps the only objection to the Christian faith that I think is slightly unfair. It is true that religion is the root cause of a number of wars, but not as many as people might think. According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, out of all 1,763 known/recorded historical conflicts, 123, or just 6.98%, had religion as their primary cause.
However, when you bring it down to a micro level, perhaps there is some credence to the claim that religion causes wars. In many communities, families and churches, religious disagreements have causes all kinds of hurtful and hateful actions. I’ve heard of churches splitting over the position of the communion table in the sanctuary, of families disowning children who dare to intermarry with people of different denominations, and of religion being used to justify all kinds of atrocities — slavery, oppression and racism.
Number 4: Judgmentalism
43% of respondents said that the judgmental attitudes they observed in Christians was a major blocker to exploring Christian faith. Being judgmental isn’t just a bad marketing strategy, it is also terrible theology. We are told again and again that judgment belongs to God alone, and Jesus made his views on human judgment very public in Matthew 7: “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.” And yet, Christians so often come across as judgmental. It’s a strange place to land.
Number 5: Issues around money
40% of respondents said that issues around money was a major blocker to exploring Christian faith. Specifically, there was a perception that, “The church is just after my money.” It is true that at your average church service, there is a call for financial gifts in the form of tithes and offerings. I don’t have a problem with this practice personally. After all, churches, like all organisations, need money to function. However, I do have a problem when churches insinuate that the giving of finance will somehow unlock the blessing of God. The more you give, the greater the blessing. Commonly known as prosperity gospel, it is nothing more than blatant manipulation.
The Issue Blockers
Not only were some of the behavior of Christians a major turn-off for non-believers, when surveyed by McCrindle, non-Christians also identified a number of issues that were likely to prevent them from exploring Christianity. Again, respondents were able to select more than one option. Here are the main issues that came up, according to the research:
Number 1: Homosexuality
33% of respondents indicated that the church’s attitudes towards homosexuality was likely to prevent them from ever exploring the Christian faith. A study by the Barna group conducted among 16–29 year-olds, asked non-Christians about their perception of Christians. According to this survey, the most common perception of Christians among non-believers is that Christians are anti-gay with 91% of non-Christians saying they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards homosexuals, and make homosexuality a bigger sin than anything else. A large portion of society has moved past the issue of homosexuality, while the church is continuing to lag behind.
Number 2: Hell & Condemnation
24% of respondents indicated that the way church uses the threat of hell to coerce people to making faith commitments is a major turn off. I will admit it. When I was a teenager, I prayed the ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ and accepted Jesus as my Lord and savior, largely because of the, “If you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity?” sermon that evangelists seem to love. Again, this is nothing more than manipulation. If the church must resort to fear and guilt as a recruitment strategy, then the product they are peddling really isn’t worth your time.
Number 3: Suffering
24% of respondents stumbled on the question of suffering — namely, “If God is so good, why is there so much suffering in the world?” In reality, this is an existential problem for people of all faiths, and even people of no faith. Every worldview must offer up an answer to the question, “Why do bad things happen?” However, I think that Christians have done themselves a great disservice by dismissing this legitimate question with pat — and often trite — answers like these: God works in mysterious ways. It’s all because of sin. All things work together for the good of those who love God. Just have faith.
What a pity that the church has failed to engage with this question at a deeper level. Personally, I think the Christian faith offers some of the most satisfactory answers to this question that is troubling for all faith systems. Perhaps I will write about that in a future article!
Number 4: Gender Roles
21% of respondents listed the church’s approach to gender roles as a stumbling block to them every considering the Christian faith. Many Christian churches ascribe to a form of “benevolent patriarchy” commonly known as Complementarianism. This belief gives men the role of authority over the wife and children, and only allows men to be church leaders. Women are expected to submit unilaterally to men, fathers, husbands and pastors. However, as the modern, Western world continues its relentless and necessary march towards equality, patriarchal structures and systems are quite rightly viewed as unacceptable and outdated.
Number 5: The Bible
20% of respondents listed the Bible as an issue that would prevent them from exploring Christianity. This might seem slightly ironic, given that the Christian worldview relies in a large part on the Biblical narrative. However, the more specific objection relates to two matters. Firstly, it is difficult in parts to take the Bible as literal, historic truth. Was Jonah actually swallowed by a real whale? It’s hard to accept this as fact, isn’t it? While I do believe that to actually be a Christian requires a faith agreement with certain things that seem implausible — such as the resurrection of Christ — it does not require you to take every part of the Bible literally.
The second objection that people have with the Bible is the fact that, when viewed through a twenty-first century worldview, some of the events and actions in the Bible seem morally reprehensible. Stoning people to death? Genocide? Rape? It’s all in the Bible. However, does its presence in the Bible indicate God’s agreement with the practice? I have my doubts personally.
Number 6: Science & Evolution
18% of respondents listed science and evolution as reasons why they would not engage in the Christian faith. It is true that the church has, far too often, set itself up as the enemy of Science. However, I personally believe that Science and faith should be able to enjoy a peaceful co-existence.
Evolution is a classic example. Some hardcore Christians would argue that evolution is nonsense. However, many Christians can see the good reasons why acceptance of an evolutionary process makes sense, and that it does not undermine the creation narrative at all. Christians believe that God made the world. Whether or not he did it by snapping his fingers, or initiating an evolutionary process that took billions of years, is immaterial to the overarching narrative. Real truth has nothing to fear from Science.
I Like Christ, But Not Christians
Frederick Douglas, an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman, was quoted in Time magazine:
Face it.
The Church, and much of modern Christianity, has an image problem that is sadly and largely deserved. One final observation from the McCrindle Research: According to this survey, the number one factor that attracted people to Christianity was observing someone actually living out a genuine faith. How about that! It’s time for Christians to return to the simple truths that were communicated by a humble carpenter in first-century Palestine — a man who would ultimately die to make God as accessible as possible to all people. It must sadden him greatly that the church is now one of the biggest obstacles to belief in Him.
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This post was previously published on Backyard Church and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Envato Elements