Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told

I just finished an interesting book called Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told by Bradley Wright. Wright argues that many statistics about Christians and the state of Christianity today are grossly misleading, exaggerated, or just plain wrong, stats like “only prostitutes rank lower than Christians in terms of respect in the mind of the public.” The media often focuses on the worst possible statistics about Christians because bad news sells, while pastors often highlight similar statistics in an effort to encourage church members to live devoutly. Wright, however, paints a much brighter picture of the state of Christianity.

Wright’s book is about statistics and surveys. As a statistical book, it offers great insight into how Christians think, and how non-Christians think about Christians. But as a statistical book, it necessarily falls short in offering a complete picture of the Christian landscape. First, surveys cannot measure genuine Christian devotion. My evidence is largely anecdotal, but most churches seem to average attendance somewhere between one-quarter to one-half of their resident membership. Though most Americans would claim to be Christian, large numbers of these self-professed believers have little to no involvement in the church. Such anecdotal evidence leads me to think that we do have something of a crisis in the church today.

Second, Wright’s analysis did not distinguish between individual churches since he was operating at a denominational or large-group level. While he could claim that church attendance numbers were not plummeting as some might want us to believe, I would be curious to know if certain kinds of churches are suffering major loses in attendance. For example, with the rise of mega-churches, have smaller, more traditional churches suffered in favor of larger, more contemporary churches? I realize that these questions are outside of Wright’s scope, but answers to these questions would certainly help me apply his findings to my particular setting. For example, that somewhere between 70-80% of American churches are plateaued or declining has become a truism (at least to any graduate of NOBTS in the last 10 years). But how could Wright’s conclusion that the state of the church is relatively healthy be true if 70-80% of our churches are struggling?

Though Wright’s book left me with a few questions, overall he offered a powerful reminder of the need to love and support Christ’s church instead of lambasting her. Often we feel the need to motivate people by painting a grim picture of the church in desperate need of devout believers. Such motivation does not lead to permanent change. We should be motivated by love for Christ’s church, not fear over her impending doom. We already know that she is victorious. We should be motivated because we have the chance to be a part of God’s master plan, not because we fear that His church will not survive unless we are scared into action.

Jesus, Interrupted

Ehrman’s goal in Jesus, Interrupted is not to destroy his readers’ faith, but instead he wants to undermine any confidence his readers might have in the Bible as the Word of God. For Ehrman, the Bible is a human book full of contradictions, written largely by men far removed from the world of Jesus and his apostles. The Bible tells us little about the life of Jesus but gives us much more about what his disciples came to believe about Jesus and the religion they invented after his death. None of these conclusions are new to Ehrman’s book, but two facets of his book deserve attention.

First, he writes for the church member and not for the scholar. Ehrman’s books have been featured on the New York Times bestseller list, a remarkable feat, particularly for his book about textual criticism. In fact, his reasoning for writing Jesus, Interrupted seems to be his desire to tell the common, church-going public what their seminary-trained pastors “refuse” to tell them about the Bible and its history.

Second, he claims that the general principles presented in his book are beyond dispute, that scholars don’t question his overall assessment of the Bible as a book filled with forgeries and falsehoods. For Ehrman, “evangelical scholar” seems to be a contradiction in terms. A sober look at the evidence would lead anyone to the same conclusions as him (except for staunch evangelicals who refuse to see the truth).

So what are we to make of his latest book? Should we tell believers to avoid it like the plague? Actually, Jesus, Interrupted is an interesting book about the Bible and the development of Christian thought. The problem is not as much with Ehrman’s presentation of the facts but with his interpretation of the facts. So if we cannot learn the whole truth about the Bible from Ehrman, what can we learn? First, we need more evangelical scholars writing for the “average” Christian. Ehrman presents one side of the debate about the Bible, but the Christian who reads his book would be hard pressed to find an equally accessible book that presents evangelical scholarship on the Bible. If we can’t write books from evangelical scholars defending the Bible that end up on the New York Times bestseller list, perhaps we could at least manage one such book that could make it onto the Lifeway bestseller list.

Second, we need more education about the Bible in our churches. Ehrman is right that we are not teaching church members about the history, development, and nature of the Bible. If we have nothing to hide, then why are we hiding? Perhaps church members have little interest in learning about the Bible in this way; they are content with “devotional” reading of the Bible. Maybe this is true, but if we do not teach them the facts and at least offer an evangelical perspective, we should not be surprised if they are shocked and defenseless after reading books like Ehrman’s.