It is time I put this topic to bed, but before I do, I must restate the main points.

Christianity is in decline in America, and for good reasons. I spent some time reviewing the latest polls to examine the projected course. Polls are complex, and they depend on who is polled and how responders are classified. With that said, polls by Pew, Barna, and Gallup have shown that the steep decline has stabilized over the past few years; however, this may be misleading. For one, the average age of the churchgoer is even older, suggesting a rapid decline ahead. Also, the “religious nones”, especially in younger groups, are continuing to soar, from 8% by 2017 to 22% this year.

Likewise, polls have found a variety of reasons for leaving the church, one poll now showing many younger people leaving the church due to its involvement in politics, especially the conservative church embracing Trumpism. The other top reasons for people leaving include the church’s treatment of LGBTQ people, discouragement of rational thought (my personal group), and hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy

In the area of hypocrisy, there are examples of Christian leaders, local and national, who preached the importance of godliness while having disreputable secret lives. I will provide an example of 30 famous Christian individuals in a video below who exemplified hypocrisy. Each of us knows many more examples of locals.

Hypocrisy in the Age of Trumpism

Then, there is the broad observation of hypocrisy of the conservative Christians who, for decades, stood against sexual promiscuity, lust for money and power, and the virtues of honesty and being law-abiding through groups like Focus on the Family, but then turned on a dime to support and love Donald Trump. Only using Donald’s in-the-record factual actions and recorded statements (no hearsay), divorced three times, boasted of having sex with thousands of women, countless extramarital affairs, boasted of sexually assaulting women, twenty women accusing him of sexual abuse or rape, proudly boasted of loving money and glitter, known as a pathological liar and, by his own words, acts of pedophilia. On the Howard Stern Show, he described it as his right as the owner of the Miss Teen USA to view the girls, ages 14-18, naked, and he often did. Most men would have been arrested for doing that. (He is accused of at least one rape by an Epstein girl, but I will call that hearsay).

I am sure there were a lot of young men and women, after being brow-beaten by their parents and churchs toward chasity, are dumbfound to see their parents and pastor trip over themselves to worship Trump.

Conclusion

I write many things here in remarkable candor that makes religious people angry at me. It is part of the Christian culture to bury such hypocrisy. But then the two-tiered system, public godliness and private debauchery, is empowered to continue, and many people, often women and children, are hurt in the process.

My point in this series of posts is not to shame these individuals, or even myself, and certainly not to say that I’m any better, but to highlight that our understanding of morality and godliness is deeply flawed. Yes, there are plenty of good people both inside and outside the church who would never be unfaithful to their spouses, who would never have secret homosexual sex while preaching against it, who would never abuse young girls or men, be inappropriate with them, or defraud people. But the idea that there is a supernatural transformation of our moral fiber the moment that we become Christians, making them far better than others, while soothing to believe, is far from the truth of human nature.

So, the conclusion is that to end this age of hypocrisy, we must first humbly observe our own nature, recognizing how our personas are deeply entrenched in the material brain and are hard to change. Understand with great honesty, our true motives. Stop the cover-ups. Stop the arrogance that the Christian is superior, morally, to everyone else. And lastly, stop the scrutiny and competition, trying to prove that not only are we superior to the non-Christian, but also to everyone else in the church, and attack those we see as inferior Christians.

Respectfully, Mike