The church
Aren't Christians hypocrites? Look at what the church has done.
If a church or a Christian hurt you, or someone you love, that was wrong, and we're sorry.
Real wrongs
These happened and shouldn't be explained away. Each one went against what Jesus said.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
Jesus hated hypocrisy
His harshest words were for religious leaders who looked good and weren't.
- Ending the slave tradeWilliam Wilberforce and Quaker campaigners, Britain, 1807
- Civil rightsLed by Black churches. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister.
- HospitalsMany of the first public hospitals were founded by churches.
- SchoolsHarvard, Oxford and countless schools began as church projects.
The good is on the record too
None of this cancels the wrongs, and the wrongs don't cancel it.
“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.
The line Douglass drew
He told apart what Jesus taught from what some churches did in His name.
- Jesus came for the sick, not the healthy (Mark 2:17).
- So the church is full of people who need help.
- Judge Jesus by Jesus.
Look at Him
Whether Jesus is who He said He was doesn't depend on how His followers behave.
Christians fail, sometimes terribly, and Jesus condemned hypocrisy more than anyone. Judge Jesus by Jesus.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.