Christianity Is Not About Being A Good Person. It Is In Fact About Us Being Very Awful People.

“I think religion is amazing,” my acquaintance told me.

I think she was trying not to offend me.  She had recently discovered I was a Christian and, while she is “not religious at all, like personally,” she told me after that repeatedly that she likes the idea of religion and is fascinated by it and generally impressed by people of faith.

I am perfectly fine with this, not least because her attitude makes it very easy to have conversations about faith with her.  She likes to talk about spirituality, not least because her beliefs are heavily influenced by New Age thought, and because she is very eager to reassure everyone that she respects whatever they believe or do not believe at all times.   Occasionally, though, the conversation goes haywire.

We were talking recently about religion, and she was explaining to me that she liked to visit religious places: any kind of temple, church, or spiritual site.  “I’ve been to Southern Baptist churches,” she said, “and a Methodist church, and a Lutheran one once, and I’ve been to a mosque, and it was amazing, and a synagogue, and…”

I’ll admit I was only half-listening, but then she said something that brought my head up.  “And, like, I learn something every time I go to one of those places, because, you know, I mean every religion is fundamentally about the same thing, about being a good person, and–”

“Well,” I hedged, desperate to interrupt before things got out of hand, “not every religion.  Not mine. In fact, Christianity says that good behavior isn’t what we depend on for salvation but–”

“No, I know,” she said, and I don’t think she heard me at all.  She barreled on and then someone else interrupted the conversation and my desperate attempts to set the record straight were lost.

It was maddening.  Is maddening.  Every time I hear someone say “Christianity is about being a good person” or “Christianity is about right behavior” or “to be a good Christian you have to do good in the world” I want to shout my frustration into the town square: that isn’t it!  That’s wrong!  That isn’t it at all!  That’s literally the exact opposite of the point!

And so, with your forbearance, I will write here what I wish I had had the time and the space to say to my acquaintance:

Oh friend.  Oh friend.  Christianity is not about “being a good person.”

In fact, it is mostly about people being generally awful, wretched, sinful, deceiving, nasty creatures.  We lie.  We steal.  We murder and plot and scheme.  We are selfish.  Scripture acknowledges here is no hope for us that lies within us, no redemption or ultimate good that is inherent to human nature.  The Enlightenment notion that humans are inherently noble and good and always progressing forward is a lie that is more and more evidenced by every progressing era.  We are wretched.  Christianity knows this.  God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit looked at the human heart and saw it to be hopelessly stained with sin and death.  In fact, Scripture say it doesn’t matter how good or righteous a human tries to be: it’s nothing besides real holiness.

Christianity is not about “being a good person.”  Christianity is about God seeing that humans were wretched, sinful people who could not save themselves from their own inherent wickedness, cruelty, and darkness – and because He loved them He stepping in to save them anyway.  Christianity is not about “being a good person.”  Christianity is about God’s wild, reckless love saving hopeless, broken, sinful people.

Do Christians strive to do things that please God, that abide by His desires and rules?  Sure.  But we recognize, in the doing, that these things don’t author our redemption.  We recognize, in the doing, that these are expressions of love and of gratitude written out in obedience.  They are a reflection of soul transformation, not the cause of it.  We recognize, in the doing, that any “being a good person” that comes out of us is because of what God is doing and has done within us.

Friend, you’re right: if Christianity is about “being a good person” then it is pretty much indistinguishable from a bunch of other religions, ideologies, and ethical systems.  There are lots of ways to “be a good person.”  You can find instructions on how to do that pretty much everywhere, and a lot of them sound the same.  An atheist can be a good person.  A Muslim can be a good person.  Christians and people who believe nothing in particular can be good people.

But Christianity is different because it says that true goodness is and has always been out of our reach, and that only God can bridge the gap between us and it.  Christianity is relentlessly practical and realist in its understanding of the human heart and human nature.  It does not offer cheery platitudes about how being a thoroughly decent person will do the trick.  Christianity tells us that being the most decent person to ever live is no help: that Christ is the help, and that’s it and that’s all.

Friend, Christianity isn’t about “being a good person.”  It’s about people being awful, and God loving them anyway.  And that’s far more radical in scope than people give it credit for being.

 

18 thoughts on “Christianity Is Not About Being A Good Person. It Is In Fact About Us Being Very Awful People.”

  2. Reblogged this on His Eye Is On The Sparrow and commented:
    I hope you don’t mind my re- blogging this. It is one of he constants woven through C.h. Spurgeons preaching for as long as he was know as the Prince of Preachers, and the heart of the good news being spread in the first century of the church.

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  3. I hope you don’t mind my re- blogging this. It is one of he constants woven through C.h. Spurgeons preaching for as long as he was known as the Prince of Preachers. And it is the heart of the good news that was being spread in the first century of the church.

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  4. Good points here! I would add that, those who try to sum up Christian’s as ‘good people’ also sum up God as ‘love’. I’m quick to add, “God is a consuming fire”. The world wants to make God benign and harmless -they are deceived into thinking He’s not to be feared.

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  8. I had tried to mention this to an old high school friend of mine. His grandma tainted Christianity a little and after seeing her do some things not Christian at all, he hated the “religion”. I don’t know if he hates it as much as he did, but I remember when we were friends that he didn’t agree much to me mentioning it or doing my studies. Throughout the friendship I was able to show him who God really was, and instead of denying His existence, at the end of our friendship, he did say that “maybe there is a God out there, or something more”. Even though I wanted him to get to the steps of believing without pushing him, I was SO glad that he at least got to the point of being skeptical. He always believed that you had to be a clean cut, perfect human being. I always explained to him that it was and is never about being perfect or good, but about being real. We fail God every day, whether that fail is big or small. But if we repent and strive to follow Jesus more strongly and willfully, we can distance ourselves from the mistakes and sins we made before and become closer to our Lord and Savior! I wish we were not perceived to be “perfect”, it hurts and frustrates me every day.

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    1. Yes, that’s very true. I hear that a lot: “the church is full of hypocrites,” which implies that we believe we’re amazing and righteous and our actions belie that. But if our message is clear, we’re not hypocrites: just blessed sinners with a very graceful God!

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  9. Hello, I started being a Christian in 2020 or 2019 through a gradual conversion (I didn’t have a spiritual experience of first conversion, I simply converted over a period of time. I’m not sure if this was real, if I was really converted though.)

    I did have some spiritual fruit after my “conversion”(?), and I really believed they were real fruit. But after a recent time when I’ve been especially struggling with my faith, I’ve realised I do not truly, genuinely believe I am a sinner. I have the knowledge that I am one, but my heart does not believe it — it is unable to see the depths of my sin and the true terribleness of it all. I cannot see my desperate need for a Saviour even though I know I should, and do feel bad about saying something like this. I realised that I might have taken Christianity as “being a good person” and ended up producing some sort of “fruit??” That isn’t really fruit. But now, I don’t know how to change my heart or believe truly. Is there anything I can do to believe? It has been a long while since this was posted, but I hope there is something I can do.

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    1. Hi S! I can’t speak with surety as to your salvation – only you and God can! – but I understand those struggles. And although I have been a Christian a very long time, I have also (and imagine many believers have) experienced at times that same lack of understanding of sin: we know it intellectually but our hearts don’t truly grasp it. If we DID truly grasp it, then we probably would do everything to avoid it.

      You ask if there’s anything you can do to believe. I say, yes – and that is to ask God to help you to believe. “I believe – help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). To understand that sometimes, like Thomas, we stand before God and confess our doubts and He responds in a way that causes us to say “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

      Don’t be afraid of your doubts. And don’t stop talking them out to God. When you feel that you don’t believe, then ask for belief. When you feel doubts, share them like Job. I am certain that if you keep the conversation open in your heart, God will listen and respond. Sometimes simply being willing to share with him what is on your heart – good bad or ugly – is the first best step.

      One more thing: I can tell the Holy Spirit is working in you just because you feel driven to ask this question. Be encouraged!

      I will keep you in my prayers, S, that God will continue to reveal himself to you, and that the Spirit would strengthen and give birth to faith and reassurance in your heart.

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