Evangelical Scandals

We've made no secret of our disdain for the hypocrisy of "Christians" who preach at all the rest of us to make ourselves as holy as they want us to believe they are (to which we respond, "If we're going to hell, we'll go at our own pace and not yours").

It's a brave "Christian" who can point out the hypocrisies of fellow "believers," and one such brave soul is Ronald Sider, who has written about "The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience" in Christianity Today. It's a long essay, but here's the gist:

"The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. 'Gallup and Barna,' laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, 'hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general.' Divorce is more common among 'born-again' Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers."