I received an angry response from a friend after he read my post from yesterday. He blasted the hypocrisy of Christian legislators who would, one moment, listen to the message of Dr. Black at the National Prayer Breakfast and in the next vote to (in his analysis) take away the health care of “the lame, the poor, the elderly and those in great need.” He ascribed this hypocrisy to “hearts hardened by the Gospel of Christ,” as he lamented the “stench of Christianity.”

Tough stuff.

What is going on here? After thanking him for following my blog (we may run into one another only several times a year by chance), I replied that hypocrisy is certainly a significant element in Christian history and behavior. As it is in all faith traditions, including the faith of atheism.

Of course, he’s right. Hard hearts inoculate us against empathy and compassion. Hard hearts act out of anger and spite. Hard hearts are judgmental and self-centered.

But, respectfully, he’s wrong. The Gospel does not harden hearts. The Gospel is the “Good News” that softened hearts are available for the taking. The Gospel is about grace and love and the reality that we are not just random particles but have meaning and purpose and “here is what those things are.” The Gospel is antagonistic to legalisms and self-centeredness (pride), to contemptuousness and an over reliance on earthly power. The problem is not the Gospel. The problem is not the central Christian message. The problem is us.

The problem is stridency across the spectrum; the breast-beating that lifts the status of the shouter to that of a warrior whose aim is power and authority. Instead of holding up a mirror that can (in an opposite fashion to that of the wicked witch in Snow White) have us realize our own grave inadequacies, we see nobility of self, with our purpose organized around that view. And that is the wellspring of hypocrisy. Show me a so-called Christian on the right who hard charges against gays (not just opposing gay marriage on principle) or the so-called Tolerant on the left who spews hate in the name of love and you serve up hypocrisy on a platter.

Just as Jesus wept for his people (the Jews), he weeps for us now as many skew his life and message to a point of serious distortion. It’s not surprising of course. As I mentioned just a few days ago, Christianity (now a religion but really just a response to the Gospel) is absurd. No wonder we mess it up!

So, whose fault is that? God’s? Some would say yes.

If you’re a follower of the nihilist Friedrich Nietzsche, you’d have to say it’s our weakness in believing something so ridiculous … succumbing to the mind-numbing mythology that says we are not or cannot be superhuman beings. If only we could unleash our potential. If you’re a follower of Sartre or Camus, of the existentialist line of thinking, you’d have to say it’s our distortion of the reality that there is no meaning in life. We are merely here to exist.

The Gospel is all about truth and grace and love. It’s about a reality that includes justice as well as forgiveness and redemption. These are virtually impossible values to live out fully even if we profess them to be accurate. The Gospel and the core teachings of the faith also explain a lot about the nature of these impossibilities and what we should do about them. To say that believers of this reality are hypocrites is easy because of course we are. But to have high ideals and fall short is not to condemn the ideals but to condemn something else … perhaps the subject of another essay.

My friend is a very bright and lovely man. When our paths cross, he greets me warmly, with an engaging smile. He is now into his mid-80s but you wouldn’t know it. He is spry and full of energy. He is honest and forthright, including about his own failings and struggles over his long and fascinating life. He is not pompous but charming and I am always glad to see him.

It’s a shame that he sees my lodestar as a source of so much that is wrong in the world. For that, I take responsibility and will continue to make every effort to disavow him and others with similar beliefs from that perspective. God help me.