The Greater Hypocrisy

I was writing in my journal Sunday about this topic, and it dawned on me that perhaps there is a greater hypocrisy among those faithful to the church than there is among those cultural Christians that identify themselves with the church but show only marginal conviction. It has become increasingly apparent to me that those truly in the grips of the gospel will want to share their faith - not as something that they do, but as the foremost thing that they do. This means that in raising their children, they are training them to share their faith; in loving their spouse, they are encouraging them to share their faith; in choosing a career, they are choosing the place in which Christ can best use them to expand His kingdom; in attending church, they are learning how to share their faith better; an so on.

But sadly, most people in church on a Sunday morning don't want to share their faith - not as the foremost thing. And so they are faithful to the church, hoping that the church will meet another need of theirs, be it community or importance or truth. They use the church to meet a need that it was not meant to meet. And so they misuse the church. See, when people say that the church is full of hypocrites, they are saying that the church is full of people who, on Sunday, say, "yes - I believe this," but then the rest of the weak say, "I'm not going to believe this stuff enough to change the way I live. It's important, but I just don't care enough." But then the hypocrites I'm talking about say, "I don't really believe this stuff, but I'm going to pretend that I do as long as I can so that I can use this church to get something that I want." I may be misguided, but all the sudden I am thinking that this is the greater hypocrisy, because it is on a much deeper level.

Of course, I'm convicting myself here as the greatest offender. And then there are those who don't do the things they want to do, but do the things they don't want to do, and so on and so forth. I am not sure that this state of agony exhonerates one from the above offense, but even so, it is probably the state of half of the Church today.

Kierkegaard, conquerer of problems past, creator of problems new

From Spark Notes...
The most common explanation of what Kierkegaard is up to is that, unlike the scientists and scholars he criticizes, Kierkegaard is not trying to communicate straightforward facts, but rather to provoke a new state of awareness in his readers. He therefore writes in an circuitous manner that is meant more to provoke reflection than to communicate clear ideas.

So, the thing I sort of knew in the back of my head has been brought to my attention more than once now. Kierkegaard may have been trying to save the world from Hegel and rationalistic philosophy, but in doing so he opened wide the door to post-modernism, and the shots that it takes at his blessed Christian faith. It is obvious that Kierkegaard held the Christian faith close to his heart, but his thinking is obviously in line with the current line, which is increasingly post-modern, and says that truth is only found in our experience. Part of me wants to simply say that, if that's what it takes to produce Christians that follow their Lord with reckless abandon, then so be it. Another part of me desperately wants Christians to be well-taught and theologically certain, but in the end, does the theological certainty actually win any souls?