Fatal Attribution Error

I get really upset with Christians who think that their faith makes them superior in the ‘goodness’ department. Unfortunately I see very little evidence of this. I think I am unusual in a few ways to my faithful friends as I have many non-Christian friends. In fact the ratio could be in favour of the non.  It's not liek me to make a list.  It seems I can look past the difference in faith and connect with the person. And, second, I don’t think I have the Christian attentional blindness that many seem to have. The fact that someone is a Christian does not filter out the bad stuff as it does for some.

It also seems short-sighted for Christians to take responsibility for the goodness in society based on some sort of thinking that our laws and morality are based on Christian principles. Which society?  Which culture. You can’t say that its a Christian influence in Chinese culture, or Indian culture and you also cannot say that they are devoid of goodness.

Christians have been the main supporters of slavery, wife beating for discipline and physical punishment of children. We do not move forward quickly. We are often way behind in excellence, in skills, in business nous and social reform. Those of us who are the leaders in social reform often have the biggest battles on our own front door step.

I find it crazy to think of the world in terms of religion. Religion is man made. It has to be. Man has been making religions for centuries (or longer – I am no anthropologist). I think more broadly in terms of creation. God is bigger than religion, bigger than Christianity. He has to be. All humans, as part of God’s creation, bear the imprint of the creator. We are all capable of doing amazing things. We are all capable of doing very broken fallen things. Ofcourse Jesus brings a difference, he throws us the lifejacket, before the ship sinks. Being Christian motivates many to be better. Love does that. It motivates us to be better. If you have found love in Christianity it motivates you. Christianity becomes the reason to be a better human. But it is humanness.

If we truly want to be effective Christians we need to deal with our attitude that we are somehow better humans because we are Christian. We may be, we may not be. It actually doesn’t matter. We are all the same, and other people who we are trying to help will pick up on hipocracy or self righteousness very quickly. It’s why there is so much distrust of the church. Others can see that Christians are no different as plain as day. Our belief that we are better, is just laughable. We are no better. We may have a few answers, we may have found The Way. We may have found Truth and Peace, and Light. But that is all about the Lifejacket, not the person wearing it.

I am judgemental – I know it, but I like to think I am slow to judge and use more objective measures than religion. If you are a Christian, I will hold that lightly. That in itself will not get you extra credit in my book. In fact I think I will judge more strongly. Do you show a difference, do you reflect the difference that your faith should give you? Are you more generous, more giving, more loving, more peaceful, more self controlled? Unfortunately I have not seen much of a difference between Christian and non. I am surrounded by a community of people whom I love unconditionally and who have given to me of themselves in ways that I would expect a faith based community to give, but most of them are not. They bear the mark of their Creator, they may not know it yet, and one day I will consider it a privilege to talk to them about the ‘Lifejacket’ that we all need; the Saviour that I know. I hope that my love for them has given me the position of trusted friend. But in the mean time, they are all beautiful people, children of the living God, as ‘good’, sometimes moreso than the Christians I know, capable of human greatness and reflecting the beauty of our Creator.

The fact that I don’t believe there is any difference between Christians and non-Christians in the goodness department doesn’t undermine my belief in the importance of Christian community. We all need to belong to groups that share our values, our beliefs etc. I just find the arrogant, self-congratulatory hypocrisy quite disgusting, and find it hardly surprising that outsiders don’t find it attractive either.