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The Ethic of Authenticity

“You are the light of the world; it is not possible for a city established on a mountaintop to hide.  Nor does one light a lamp and set it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, thus it illuminates the whole house.  In this way, shine your light before mankind so they might see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.”

(Matthew 5:14-16)

When we talk about ethics, usually questions of morality come to mind.  The dictionary defines ethics in terms of moral principles that guide a person’s or a group’s behavior.  It also refers to a study of the “rightness” or “wrongness” of any given action.  This rightness or wrongness ultimately is determined by a standard of some sort—for many, it is society (which leads to despotism) or their own preferences (which leads to chaos and anarchy), for the Christian, the standard is the Bible and specifically the Ten Commandments (along with Jesus’ summary of the 10 Commandments, that we are to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as ourselves).

As Christians, we are pretty used to hearing the language of moral norms and guidelines, though oftentimes, we approach them in practice more as practical suggestions than as absolute laws.  God commands us to make no idols, yet we idolize celebrities; we are called not to use the Lord’s name for vain purposes, yet many use church or their Christian profession simply as a way to generate more business.  We are called to keep the Sabbath holy, yet treat it as we would any other day.  We speak of a high moral calling in every area of life, yet often live it out half-heartedly and the world is watching us the whole time.  When a non-believer watches a Christian whose walk does not match his talk, there is a term that they rightfully use: “hypocrite.”

The English word, “authentic,” comes from two related Greek terms: aujqentiko/ß (authentikos), which means “original” or “genuine,” and aujqentikwvß (authentikos—with a long “o”), which refers to something that can be seen with perfect clarity (no blurry or grayed edges).  While neither word is found within the Biblical texts of either testament, the principle of being authentic is clearly portrayed.  Jesus says that we are to be lights to the world, guiding them through the darkness of this life and guiding them in such a way that the light is neither hidden nor distorted. We are to shine our light before men and in such a way that it clearly points to God and not to those doing the works.  In a very real sense, Jesus is calling us to be authentic in living out our faith.

While some would argue that the unbeliever is the real hypocrite and others would argue that churches really aren’t filled with hypocrisy, taking this tact of argumentation degenerates swiftly into an ad hominem argument and name calling is neither makes for effective evangelism nor is it the foundation for an honest relationship to be built upon.  If we as the church are to genuinely be a light that illuminates everything in the world and to do so with the aim of pointing people to God (the Great Commission), then as a church, we need to be ready to accept the honest criticism of unbelievers in this world and strive to live in an authentic way before watching eyes.  Rather than being defensive, let us strive toward authenticity in our faith, always seeking to live with integrity.  What the world wants to know is not whether our faith is better than the other alternatives this world has to offer; what the world wants to know is whether or not our faith is real and genuine.  They can live with some inconsistency; what they cannot abide with is inauthenticity.  Any Christian ethic that we might articulate will find itself entirely undermined unless it begins with the expectation that Christians live authentic—genuine—lives that are transparent and lived honestly (for good or for ill) before the world around us.  Until we live authentically and have authentic relationships with others in and out of the church, the watching world won’t be interested in what it is that we have to offer.

Does Your Location Affect Your Religion?

Recently, I heard a challenge to Christianity that was worded like this:  “The only reason you identify yourself as Christian is because you were born in America; if you had been born in Iraq, you would be Muslim and if you had been born in northern India, you would be Hindu—religion is nothing more than a cultural expression of morality.”  The person making the challenge was Richard Dawkins, a popular atheist in our culture today.  Though I had not heard that objection worded in the same basic way, I have heard this objection of Christianity before, and thought that I would like to pose a response from two perspectives.

The first perspective is purely a practical one, for I know that there are many nominal Christian parents that are essentially banking on this principle, hoping that their children will remain Christian (at least in name), while never truly training their children up in the faith.  They think that of course, America is a Christian nation, so of course, my children will remain Christians all of their life.  This not only exposes a faulty understanding of Christianity (as I will mention below), but it is a dangerous assumption, for America is becoming more and more of a secular, atheistic nation, and not a Christian one.  Thus, some are estimating that as many as 80% of teenagers leave the church when they hit their college years, often without returning.  Don’t get me wrong, many of them still think of themselves as Christian, but their Christianity has no bearing on the way they live their lives and for all practical purposes, they are secular humanists in practice and thought.

Furthermore, many of these children will openly reject Christianity because they see how self-serving, jaded, lazy, and corrupt so many churches have become.  Many embrace the atheism of their college professors, but others are embracing false religions like Islam because they are attracted to the self-discipline and rigid lifestyle that such religions offer.  We should not need to be reminded that one of the reasons that the Byzantine empire fell so easily to the Muslim expansion was due to the corruption and self-seeking nature of the church—people saw its weaknesses and rejected it as diseased and dying.  Such an observation has been made of much of the church in America.  Thus, it is not enough that we are actively pursuing the Christian faith, it is essential for us to recognize that our children must be actively pursuing the Christian faith as well.

That is the purely practical perspective, now for the theological one…  While many religions may very well be simply cultural expressions of morality, Christianity, by definition, is different.  For in Christ, we are called “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17)—in other words, we are changed from the outside in.  Christianity is not a mere self-help program, it is a total change of lifestyle that can only be accomplished if one is supernaturally changed by God—we refer to this as being “born again” (John 3:3).  This change is impossible to do for oneself, but God must effectively draw us to Christ as well (John 6:44).  God draws us from the world, God gives us new life, and God makes us a new creation.  This is more than mere morality, it is transformation.  And, it is a transformation that takes place all over the world, even in countries where you can be put to death for claiming Christ as Lord and Savior.

The sad thing is that too many Christians simply treat Christianity as a self-help program, and when that happens, they do not live like new creations and Christianity becomes nothing more than a social norm—a norm that is quickly being redefined in America.