Christians: Why are you so afraid of having Christianity judged by the way christians behave?

Question

If I want to judge the way Christianity improves one's life, what better way to judge the matter than to judge the way the average christian behaves?

While I am sure there are exceptional situations, the -average- christian leaves much to be desired on the question of spiritual improvement.

Since so many people who claim to be christian fail to practice it, would it be fair to say that christianity does very little for the spiritual growth of the average christian?

Answer 1

I am not please do... hopefully their behaviour will improve, if they are not listening to God hopefully they will listen to you...

And if you are going to judge Christianity by the way Christians behave please don't just pick those who God hasn't taught about the importance of words, importance of relationships (healthy), importance of sacrifice.... pick a good broad spectrum as any good scientist would, and then analyse the whole of their life, every aspect.. only when you have all the data then you can make an informed judgement...

Answer 2

That wouldn't be fair. I think some christians are afraid because, people judge christians based on a couple of peoples choices and then say all christians are like that. If that so called "christian" fails to be a true christian, then that person is a hypocrite and isn't a christian. Being a christian is not JUST believing in Jesus, but repenting from your sins and live the way God commanded us to. No person is perfect, but a true Christ-follower will do their best.

Answer 3

Now how is a Christian supposed to behave? Are we supposed to be perfect? Always peaceful? Always loving? Never angry?

Your assumption is that by being a Christian, your humanity is somehow X'd out, like because you're a Christian you get that EXTRA helping of perfection that everyone else just doesn't get. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. God uses our humanity to show us just who we really are as humans, and that's not always a pretty picture. But in so doing, He also uses these instances to encourage us to leave those rather nasty traits behind. For some it takes only a minute, for others it takes a lifetime.

Now don't be confused. There are lots of people out there who call themselves Christians who aren't. Maybe they don't have an understanding of what a true Christian is, maybe their religion teaches them that they're Christians (ala Mormons and JWs) when they're not, and maybe it just sounds good on your resume.

In short, you can't judge the behaviour of a Christian based solely on their supposed Christianity; you have to judge the person as a whole. We are all human and we all make mistakes, Christians included, so don't be harder on us than you would on the next guy. It's not fair and it really shows your prejudice.

Answer 4

…I would be interested to where you are getting your information. Did you do a lot of study to come up the conclusions that you do? I feel sure that you must have squared things many things away in your own life – especially those things for which you criticize Christians. How do measure the spiritual growth of the “average Christian.”? Could we hear about your spiritual growth, and means you have used to grow spiritually? Do you dabble in the occult or cult religions, or are just a plain atheist who claims to believe nothing, but fights against the Christian faith whenever it is mentioned.
…You will always find sins and failures in finite man, and in Christians and non-Christians, including you and me. We have an old nature and bodies that lust after sin, but after one believes on Christ, he is given a new nature and the Holy Spirit, who gives the believer power to life the life he should, plus a new desire to please His Lord. The true Christian trusts in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, and Christ changes the person from the inside out – and this is a lifelong process. The legal standing of the believer is that he is justified (declared righteous) through faith in Christ, and then he spends his life becoming more and more like Jesus – he works at becoming what he already legally is.
…Only the Lord Jesus Christ can say, “Which one of you convicts Me of sin?” You and I must deal with Him. Your criticism of Christians might make you feel superior to Christians now, but “each of us shall give account of Himself to God” and every knee shall bow to Christ – and you and I will not escape.
…Hebrews 2:3 says this, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” You and I cannot and will not escape the judgment.
…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved. Acts 16:31
…Whosoever will, may come.

Answer 5

Yep! The Christians like my mother and a few of the people on here are the minority. Thing is that they don't want to be judged for their actions which is the best way to judge a group. Ever notice when they attack the Pagans they don't attack our actions but our beliefs. When we talk about our good actions, they tell us how that doesn't matter. I would prefer to judge someone on how they behave rather than what their religion, sexual preference etc...

Answer 6

You have unfortunately observed the truth--most Christians do not live a Christ-like life; as a matter of fact, none of us do. We have been commanded to have the mind of Christ. That is to say that we must try to think and act as Jesus would in every situation. But we cannot. This is a difficult fact for even the Christian to accept, and quite likely impossible for the non-Christian to understand. Jesus was/is/always will be God--He was as much God as though He were never a man, and as much a man as though He were not God. Our finite minds can recognize this fact, but cannot understand it. But that is alright; when we join Him in heaven, He will explain it to us, and our new minds in our new bodies will be able to understand.
In the meantime, here we are, on this natural earth, along all those who have not chosen to follow Him. We are incapable of calculating who has truly accepted His call to be His child; how, then could we ever be able to judge whether one is truly saved. Again, it does not matter that we do not know, as we have faith in His knowledge. Our job is to do the best we can to live our lives with Jesus as our example, and what He did was to exemplify God in all He did in every way every day. Sometimes we fail--often, even. But because of His mercy, He forgives us over and over if we only ask. It is the failing and being forgiven that causes us to grow.
Use a child's learning to walk as an example. Each time that he falls and gets hurt, he gets up and tries again. This procedure continues until he learns how to do that thing right. Then he goes on to learn something else, and something else, and so on. So do we--it is called spiritual growth. Some children never achieve full growth and learning. Some even lose their lives while still young. Who can explain this? Not me.
But I can assure you that many who have made a decision to accept Christ, but never completely submit to His will, will lose their lives early, also. God will call home those whose influence is detrimental to the faith; not all but some. Again, only He knows how this decision is made. Again, we must simply trust that this mighty God, creator of all things, does know. He is never wrong!

Answer 7

I tend to agree with you. The larger the church body, the easier it is to get lost in the crowd and personal accountablity disappears.

Large churches are much like large cities, easy to get lost in, lots of people and you dont even know the ones sitting or living next to you.

I know that the way I live matters, I may be the best example of CHristianity someone has ever seen, How did I come across, what did they see or not see in me?
If I am the best that they have ever seen, was it at least accurate of what a Christian should be?

I live in a small town, we are still accountable to one another, in church and in and about town. If someone sees my teens up to no good, I still get a phone call. and the kids know this.
If it were still that way across this country, kids would be much more behaved in front of and behind their parents backs.

Answer 8

If you work on an assembly line (the christian line)
And the company decides to close that line because 1/4 of the line is no doing what they should. (half the line are atheistic). Would that be fair?

However, if the foreman went to those guilty and gave them a layoff notice--wouldn't that be a justifiable measure equal to all?

I cannot judge my brother and I can only account for my actions. Easy to understand--Christianity is a personal action and filled with free-will.

Answer 9

"Why are you so afraid of having Christianity judged by the way christians behave?"

Two reasons. The first reason is because Christians are not perfect people like Jesus. We are all on the road to becoming more and more like Him but we will always be imperfect and fall short.

The second reason is because God isn't going to judge you on the basis of how well Christians represented Jesus here on earth. He is going to judge you on what decision you made about Jesus, not about those who are trying their best to follow Him.

Oh, one more reason. Jesus taught a parable about the wheat and the tares. Tares are poisonous weeds that look just like wheat until it is time for the harvest. So not everyone who names the name of Christ is a true Christian. Some are plants from the Devil.

Matthew 13:24 He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the tares appeared also.

27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' 28 He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' 29 But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the tares you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the tares first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"

Matthew 13:37 He answered and said to them: "He that sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 And the field is the world, and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the evil one. 39 The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. 40 Therefore just as the tares are gathered and burned with fire, thus it will be at the end of this age. 41 The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who work iniquity, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

Answer 10

I pray that I am one of those Christians that do take spiritual growth seriously. However, I have a question for you, and I would really like you to answer this, through comments or you can personally email me- if you do not believe in what Christianity stands for, why would you care if someone follows it or not? Just because we are Christians that does not make us perfect. I pray that I do represent Jesus well, and that I have a life that is transformed for the better, but I still sin, and for that I have an advocate before the Father, who loves me and will welcome me with open arms when I come to Him. And I answer to Him. I LOVE TTC's answer and also Martins