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It’s often claimed that the Church is full of fake and hypocritical Christians. A common refrain from non-Christians is that they like Jesus, but not his followers. There’s even a popular quote that I believe is misattributed to Gandhi which goes something like, “I like your Christ, but not your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.”

And even if Ghandi never said that, the popularity of this quote suggests that it resonates with a lot of people.

And as a somebody that is part of the Church, believes in the Christian creed, and adopts the identity of a follower of Jesus, I can concede that there is a lot of truth to that sentiment – the Church does have that problem.

But so does every walk of life. Nobody lives up to the moral standard that they profess, or at least internalize, and the reason we know this is because everyone has experienced guilt and shame. And I’m not talking about the kind of shame that comes from somebody else expressing disapproval of your moral conduct. That more often just produces the effect of anger and resentment, as opposed to shame.

I’m talking about the kind of shame that appears as a result of the conviction of our own conscience – because we’ve done something that falls beneath the expectations and moral standards we set for ourselves – and we’ve all experienced this.

We all have memories, that when they rehearse themselves in our minds, we sort of recoil from them in shame and embarrassment because it is our OWN conscience that disapproves of our behaviour. We all have things we wish we could take back.

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