Encouraging - Hypocrisy

This creates a wicked double jeopardy: older born-again believers may be emphasizing lifestyle and avoiding sin as a means of measuring faith maturity, but the behavior and perspectives of young Christians only intensify the perception that Christians are hypocritical. Older born-agains need to look more carefully at what Jesus teaches, that spiritual maturity is demonstrated in a life as an outcome of the condition of a person’s heart and soul, that behavior follows belief. And younger born-again Christians need to take an honest assessment of their lives and realize that they are increasingly poor witnesses of a life and mind transformed by their faith. Embracing personal integrity and rejecting compromises to personal purity are crucial goals for young believers. We cannot hope to shed our hypocritical label if our lifestyles offer no proof of the “fruit” of Christlikeness. These are tough realities to think about, but we must do so if we hope to shift our reputation from un-Christian to Christian.

David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters (Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI: 2007), 54.