As mentioned in a post last month, one thing I have noticed over my twenty-four years of graduate teaching at a Christian university is this: Undergraduates from secular universities come into our programs focused on figuring out how to be a Christian in the world, since that has been their experience and pressing need. Indeed, that was my own experience while attending public K-12 schools and secular universities (Rice University and the University of Southern California).
In contrast, I find undergraduates from Christian universities, when talking about applying Christianity to education, often focus on overcoming the hypocrisies and inconsistencies in the Church or Christian educational communities, since that has been their educational experience. Since I think the former focus should take priority over the latter (although the latter is certainly needed at times), in this post, I propose some ways to help undergraduates attending Christian universities, as well as faculty and staff in Christian universities, think through their response to Christian hypocrisy, so they can focus on being a loving and wise Christian in the world.
Moving from Admissions Marketing to Reality
College marketers, admissions officers, and faculty/staff recruiters are like young people on romantic dates. They’re presenting their and their institution’s best image to persuade students or future faculty and staff that they are the right fit for them. The institution’s potential flaws and weaknesses will not be highlighted, and we should not expect them to be. Indeed, someone who starts oversharing their sordid past on the first couple of dates is considered unwise.[1] Yet, there comes a time to face and deal with past and present reality when a certain level of commitment is made. We’re all sinners, and thus hypocrites in certain dimensions of our lives, and our institutions will always be inconsistent and hypocritical in some areas. We should openly talk about that and what to do about it. The question is when and how.
When and How to Remind Students We Are All Sinners and Thus Hypocrites at Times
For students, I think the best place to do it would be in a chapel or other student life programming at the end of new students’ first or second month on campus. Students have experienced enough to start to realize some potential realities.
First, I think it is helpful to talk honestly about the alumni experience. For example, one of my classes recently reviewed survey data from eight different years of Baylor alumni. Over 90% of these alumni share deep appreciation for their experience at Baylor when it comes to religious or moral formation. Usually, their appreciation comes from encountering committed and inspiring Christian faculty, staff, and students. Yet, there are always the 10% or so who mention the opposite: their encounter with Christian hypocrisy. Here are a few such responses:
- “Didn’t like the character of the people on campus that considered themselves religious.”
- “I have completely left the church because people made me hate what they pretend to stand for”
- “I saw a very negative and hypocritical side of my faith while at Baylor.”
- “Seeing so much hypocrisy challenged my faith.”
- “The fakeness/performative Christianity of some people at Baylor was not encouraging and made it hard to assess who was sincere in their faith.”
- “I did not grow because I felt suffocated by the very religious people around me that insisted on judging my life.”
- “Being bullied by students there both in class and out of class made me hate Christians. People at Baylor pretend to be Christian but are actually fake people who are extremely mean and awful.”
We should use insights from alumni such as these to remind current students that they will likely encounter religious hypocrisy at our Christian institution. Indeed, this reality is consistent with Christian theology and something found throughout the Gospels. Honestly, I find that those shocked by Christian hypocrisy in a Christian institution have usually failed to take their Christian theology seriously. Interestingly, the English word used to translate the Greek term (hypokritai) is used almost exclusively by Christ (17 of 18 times in the NT NIV), so we should be careful, as fallen humans, to use it to describe others without including ourselves.
Theologically speaking, we should also help students realize that moral hypocrisy exists wherever one finds people with strong moral convictions. For instance, one study found that rich environmentalists tend to be hypocrites. Few of them are willing to live in smaller homes. Furthermore, they like to travel. As the article hyperlinked notes, “individuals high in socioeconomic status have larger [environmental] footprints, primarily due to their increased transport activity (air and car travel). Counterintuitively, the stronger their pro-environmental stance, the larger their footprint.”
The key difference for Christians is not necessarily the absence of hypocrisy in our midst but in how we address it.
Dealing with Hypocrisy Christianly
We need to teach students Christian ways to deal with hypocrisy. I suggest the following five approaches:
1. Theologically, we should teach them to expect it (Rom. 3:23) but fight against it in ourselves (Mt. 6). We need to be clear that everyone at our institution, including faculty and staff, is fallen (and that includes ourselves). Moreover, we should recognize that hypocrisy is part of the spiritual battle. Satan uses it to discourage us and others. One of the interesting things about hearing from alums is reading their regrets about being hypocrites while at Baylor:
- “I feel like I did grow in my knowledge of the Faith, but I wish I would have gotten involved in a church. A lot of my friends were not strong in their Faith, which led me to not put that as a priority while I was at Baylor.”
- “At first, I did not grow in my spiritual life at Baylor. I would say that I strayed away my first few semesters. I felt a lot of peer pressure from my roommates, and I didn’t make good choices, which negatively impacted my spiritual life.”
- “My involvement in Greek life changed my character. I deeply regret joining my sorority. Incredibly toxic environment and relationships.”
- “Living away from the main campus had a negative effect. Without a support system, it was harder to resist negative influences.”
2. Recognize and deal with it first in ourselves (Mt. 7:3-5). The story always circulates among young Baylor women about those girls who supposedly go down to Sunday lunch dressed as if they went to church, but they really didn’t go to church. It is a tiresome story (legend?) that I have heard repeatedly over my four decades of acquaintance with Baylor. Whenever this story comes up, I find it helpful to ask students: What might it say about our own attitudes and actions toward those who do not go to church?
3. Confront it and repent of it (Mt. 7:5). This action would apply first to ourselves. We likely have plenty of logs in our eyes. Indeed, as someone who studies virtue, I find that I am constantly confronted with my own selfishness, pride, insensitivities, and inconsistencies, since I am constantly reading about virtue. I need to confess and repent every day in my daily time of prayer.
4. Pray for the Spirit to reveal hypocrisy in ourselves, others, and our institutions (John 16:8). What makes hypocrisy difficult, especially for ourselves, is that we have trouble seeing it without the Spirit’s help. Also, we need to remind students that they do not need to be the Spirit for every hypocrite they encounter. When we become aware of hypocrisy in others or an institution, our first reaction should be to pray. Then, if the Spirit leads, we can take action.
5. Of course, as Mt. 7:5 notes, if the Spirit leads us, we then can address the speck in someone else’s eye. As I grow older, I find that these sanctifying conversations are among the most important I have, but my fleshly reaction is to avoid them. When I get that feeling that makes me want to avoid a conversation, it usually means that spiritual forces are fighting against me having it. Yet, my family, friends, students, and educational leaders need me to hold them accountable and ask them tough questions. We should be educators who educate our students to do the same with grace.
6. Experience the non-Christian world. Although it is helpful for Christians to think and imagine the Kingdom of God, always immersing oneself in Christian communities and then comparing Christian communities to the Kingdom of God can sometimes produce cynicism and disillusionment. Christian students, staff, and faculty also need to immerse themselves in history and in other secular communities, including those outside their country, to make realistic comparisons and have realistic ideas of what a sanctified Christian community can and should achieve.
Honestly, I find the same thing true about families, noneducational communities, and countries as well. It is only by spending time with other families, secular communities, and non-Christian countries that one can gain a realistic understanding of one’s own. Thus, I think one of the best things students can do is visit secular or non-Christian countries. In addition to undertaking almost all of my education in secular contexts, my experiences spending a summer in Thailand during college and living, teaching, and conducting research in the countries of the former Soviet Union were transformational in many ways. Just like those who live in the first world often complain about first-world problems, those living in Christian communities often fail to realize they complain about Christian world problems without comprehending the depths of the Fall in the outside world that desperately needs Christ.
[1] That all being said, my future mother-in-law shared with me the effect of her husband’s unbridled temper on the family during my first visit to my future wife’s family in Canada. Perhaps she was trying to scare me away, but I do think that early conversation was very helpful in getting me to think redemptively about how I can pray for and foster the Spirit’s role in healing those effects early.
