It’s been long taught sanctification is the opposite of hypocrisy: In sanctification, we Christians try to follow God; in hypocrisy, we pretend to follow God. But anyone who knows a little logic knows the opposite of sanctification is non-sanctification: It’s when we do nothing. Hypocrisy is worse, for it does nothing, yet pretends to do something.
Still, though fake sanctification is a different animal altogether, it’s hardly good. It’s when we Christians make a lot of assumptions about what it means now that God has, in his grace, made us holy and righteous in his sight: We figure our nature has automatically transformed. Instead of being selfish, our every action gravitating towards sin, we assume our every action now gravitates towards the right thing. Because God has made us right with himself, we believe everything we now do… is right. Our thinking is right. Our behavior is right. Our prejudices are right. Salvation is like a big heavenly rubber stamp of approval.
But at best, all we’re really doing is following the most popular trends of the Christian culture. We’e practicing things which appease people. Meanwhile our relationships with Jesus get no closer… and we’re not sure why.
Superficially, our lives have changed a bit for the better. We have a support system of fellow Christians who commit the same sins we do, who are the same sort of hypocrites we are, who can encourage us to practice the very same sort of shallow Christianity as they. And when we doubt whether there’s any depth to our religion, we can rest assured: They’ll tell us no, we’re just fine. (Because they’re just fine.) It’s okay if we’re fruitless and faithless; the feeling that we’re vainly spinning our wheels is the devil’s temptation, not the Holy Spirit shouting at us to wake up.
Our Christian subculture.
But if you’ve been Christian for any length of time, you’ve likely encountered the Christian subculture. Some new Christians dive headfirst into it. It involves one variation or another of abandoning the pagan world, and replacing it with a new Christ-coated world. Everything you used to do, or own, gradually gets replaced with “Christian” alternatives.
Your favorite music? Now it’s Christian. Either you changed styles entirely, ditching your favorite type of music in favor of contemporary Christian music (or hymns), or you just found the Christian variation of the same stuff. The books you read? Written by Christians. The clothes you wear? The T-shirts all sport Christian slogans, and the rest of them tend to be more conservative than the stuff you used to wear. Your favorite movies and TV shows? Well, if you’ve not abandoned movies and TV completely, those haven’t changed much, or at all. Wait, why is that? I’ll get to that.
Your politics? You’ve discovered your party has a Christian wing, and joined that. Or, depending on your church, you joined the Christian wing of their party. I’ve known people who were Republicans when they were pagan, and got involved in a Christian Left church, and now are progressive Democrats. I’ve likewise known people who were Democrats before, and Republicans on the Christian Right now. Both groups simply can’t conceive anyone would join the other side; some even claim anyone who did so, isn’t truly Christian. Now, why is that? I’ll get to that too.
Your personal habits? Likely you’ve been encouraged to use less profanity. Some churches discourage smoking, or alcohol, or tattoos and piercings, or card-playing, social dancing, certain styles of clothing and makeup (and not just when the church meets), or other social conventions. Some churches even discourage television, movies, and music altogether.
Throw on a lot of Christianese slang, and you’ve got the “Christian lifestyle.” Show off any of it, or stick a Christian fish on your car and business cards, and other Christians will automatically recognize you as one of us.
Does any of this stuff come from the bible? Not a bit of it.
Some is extrapolated from the bible. Christians take “Don’t be drunk with wine” and expand it into “Don’t drink at all.” Considering how many people have problems with alcohol abuse, many Christians ought not drink. But to totally prohibit it, and claim no Christian ought drink, is going further than the scriptures do. It’s taken a human custom and given it the weight of scripture. It’s one thing if the custom were validly based on the scriptures, like the Apostles’ Creed. But it’s another when it’s not scriptural at all—like when churches prohibit social dancing.
You see, a lot of these customs actually come from 19th century upper-class American society. It’s how white slaveowners from the South behaved in public before the Civil War. Because of the myth that people in the past knew how to behave more Christian than the people of today, it’s been repackaged for the 21st century, and churches teach that instead of teaching their people how to think, engage with the issues of today, and answer them in a Christian manner. Far easier to retreat into the past… even a wholly inappropriate, hypocritical past.
What these folks are practicing is Christianism, a socially acceptable, exterior form of Christianity, but one which has nothing to do with a closer relationship with Christ Jesus. It’s dead religion. Since it’s fake sanctification, it’s really no religion. Yet Christians who practice it, use it as a form of peer pressure, and try to get others to behave the same way. If Christianism actually made us closer to Christ, this would be awesome. But since it doesn’t, the Christians who are trying to follow Jesus often try to juggle following him, and fitting in with the Christianists. They have divided loyalties. Sometimes they side with Jesus. Sometimes not.
So, why is it Christianists switch their favorite music, but not movies? Because the Christian music business is far greater than the Christian motion picture business. So the pressure to only watch Christian video is lessened by the lack of it. And partly it’s because music is more of a shared experience than movies: Other people can hear what you play on your stereo, and nudge you towards listening to the things they approve of. And since few Christians object to Christian music, it becomes what you listen to.
As for why Christianists pick the politics they do, and can’t imagine any other view: That’s about getting your beliefs validated. Not transformed by Jesus. He transcends politics. Any Christian who can’t get beyond their politics and parties, for the sake of following Jesus, for the sake of the lost people of other parties, isn’t really following Christ.
Too many Christians have embraced the Christianist subculture, thinking this is the way to sanctification. It’s not. At all. It’s only the way to social acceptance. If that’s your goal, rather than a closer relationship with Jesus, you’ve picked the wrong religion. Don’t be surprised when it starts to feel empty.
The emerging church movement.
If you’ve ever heard of the emergent church, it’s a movement which stemmed from Christians who realized Christianism isn’t Christianity, and chose to emerge from that subculture. Emergents wish to take a good look at what Jesus expects of his followers, and try to be authentic Christians. Which is a noble goal.
Here’s the problem: A lot of emergent churches are really just a whole new Christianist subculture. They’re just progressive instead of conservative, or vice-versa. They listen to different music. They drink alcohol instead of shunning it. They get tattoos and piercings instead of shunning them. They claim they’re less judgmental of the wider culture than the other Christianists… but don’t get them started on the other Christianists.
Is that any better? Nah. But they sure feel better about themselves. ’Cause that’s consistently the problem with fake sanctification: It’s about feeling better about yourself. It’s never about actually following Jesus, and becoming better.
Not to knock the emergent church movement: A lot of them really are trying to follow Jesus. A lot of the leaders certainly are. But shepherds and sheep are two entirely different species: The followers have joined the movement ’cause they want to be hipsters, and have found a way to become Christian hipsters. They figure they’re “authentic” because they don’t have to hide their indulgences. But they don’t recognize that perhaps they ought to practice more self-control. Their freedoms may not be hypocrisy, but they’re not making them any more Christlike.
True sanctification.
Obviously, the path of true sanctification is to obey Jesus. Read his teachings and stick to them. Where your church helps, accept their help. Where it hinders, don’t. Never assume everything in the Christian subculture is a help. Half the time the things in it are simply repackaged pagan things which have no business in our lives, coated with a thin coat of Christianity-paint in order to sell it to you.
Politics are usually the most obvious example. While either party embraces some views which Jesus has taught, they embrace other views which he clearly opposes. The Christians in both parties have made a great effort to justify those anti-Christian policies, and make it sound like Jesus approves of them. They take advantage of we Christians’ unfamiliarity with Jesus. They take advantage of our fake sanctification: “Of course it sounds right to you. You’re a Christian; you now have the mind of Jesus.” But Jesus isn’t in any of it. Self-centeredness is.
Politics is an easy target to pick on, but it’s not just politics. Many Christian books are pagan pop psychology, repackaged for Christians, with bible verses thrown in to justify all the misbehavior. Prosperity gospel books will tell you it’s okay to be greedy, because Jesus wants you to have the desires of your heart, and skip the fact your heart is desperately wicked. Men’s movement books will tell you it’s okay to be “wild” and “free” and never let your wife hold you back… and practice old-fashioned chauvinism, and twist the bible in such ways that Jesus sounds precisely like the same sort of he-man jerk you’ve always looked up to, and would like to be. Christian pop music will simply replace “baby” with “Jesus”—and Christians will totally miss how homoerotic it would sound if you ever replaced “Jesus” with another man’s name. Third-rate Christian art, which only sells because it was made by Christians, is everywhere; third-rate Christian businesses, which only have customers because Christians forgive them, abound.
Does this mean we can’t trust fellow Christians? Sadly, yes. Some of them are trustworthy, but we can’t blindly accept anything with the “Christian” label on it. All it guarantees is they’re Christianists, but no more sanctified, no more holy or righteous, than any pagan. Sometimes less righteous, who find trusting Christians make easy suckers. Count on it. Watch out for it.
But once you find Christians who are trying to follow Jesus, who have no problem bucking the trends when they perceive the trends aren’t leading us anyplace good, stick with them. Follow them as they follow Jesus. Don’t follow them when they don’t.