Skip to content

Course 19 · Lesson 6.4

Judging a faith by its failures: what follows and what does not

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 19 outline

Module 1: The Secular Age: Humanism and Naturalism

  1. What secular, secularism and secularization mean
  2. Secular humanism: its claims and its moral vision
  3. Philosophical naturalism and its alternatives
  4. Christian responses to naturalism and humanism

Module 2: Science, Evolution and Faith

  1. Models of science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, integration
  2. What the theory of evolution claims and what it does not
  3. Christian positions on creation and evolution
  4. The history of the conflict story and its critics

Module 3: Criticism of the Bible

  1. The rise of historical and literary criticism
  2. What critics claim about authorship, sources and development
  3. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant responses to criticism

Module 4: Truth, Relativism and Postmodernism

  1. What postmodernism is, and why the term is hard to define
  2. Truth, language and interpretation
  3. Moral relativism: descriptive, cultural and philosophical forms
  4. Christian responses to relativism and postmodern thought

Module 5: The Masters of Suspicion

  1. Marx on religion, ideology and economic life
  2. Nietzsche on Christianity, morality and the death of God
  3. Freud on religion as illusion
  4. The genetic fallacy, and when explaining the origin of a belief matters

Module 6: Power, Corruption and Morality

  1. Church, state and political power in history
  2. Institutional failure and abuse
  3. Critiques of Christian morality and how Christians reply
  4. Judging a faith by its failures: what follows and what does not

Module 7: Mind, Meaning and Nihilism

  1. Consciousness and the limits of materialism
  2. Meaning and purpose in secular and Christian thought
  3. Nihilism, despair and Christian hope

Module 8: Writing a Response

  1. Stating a challenge in its strongest form
  2. Building a structured response
  3. Conceding what is true in the critic’s case

All courses

Program / Course 19: Modern Challenges / Lesson 6.4

What you will learn

  • Distinguish between the truth of a teaching and the conduct of those who profess it.
  • Explain the legitimate force of the argument from fruits, using Jesus’ own words.
  • Identify the fair comparisons and the unfair ones when weighing the record of a faith.
  • State what Christians should concede and what they may still say.

The big idea

When Christians fail, it is natural to ask whether their faith is true. Two answers are tempting and both are wrong. One says that the failures prove nothing, because the faith is true whatever believers do. The other says that the failures refute the faith. The correct answer lies between. The conduct of Christians does not decide whether Christ rose from the dead. It does bear on whether Christianity does what it claims to do, which is to change lives, and it bears on whether Christians have given a credible witness. Honest weighing requires fair standards.

Key terms

Argument from fruits
The argument that a belief should be judged by what it produces in the lives of those who hold it, based on Jesus’ words that a tree is known by its fruit.
Hypocrisy
Professing standards one does not keep. In the Gospels the word means acting a part.
No true Scotsman fallacy
Saving a generalization by redefining the group so that counter-examples do not count, as in saying no real Christian would do that.
Base rate
The usual frequency of something in a population, which must be known in order to judge whether a group is better or worse than others.
Corruptio optimi pessima
A Latin saying, the corruption of the best is the worst. It means that the failure of what claims to be good is especially grievous.
Sanctification
In Christian teaching, the process by which God makes a person holy over time.
Witness
In Christian use, the testimony of belief by words and by life.

Background

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus links the truth of a person’s claims to what he does. A good tree bears good fruit, and a corrupt tree bears evil fruit (Matthew 7:16 to 20). He warns that not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom, and says that people will know his disciples by their love (John 13:35). These sayings invite the fruits test, and they have been turned by critics against the church. Gandhi is reported to have said that he liked Christ but not Christians, though the exact words are uncertain.

The question has been asked in every century. In the fourth century, the Donatists argued that the sacraments of a sinful bishop were invalid, and Augustine replied that the church includes sinners until the end, as the parable of the wheat and the tares says (Matthew 13:24 to 30). That argument has shaped Western thought on the subject. The Reformers also said that the visible church is mixed. Yet the same traditions do not accept that the failures are irrelevant.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: What does not follow

The truth of a historical claim does not depend on the character of those who believe it. If Jesus rose from the dead, he rose whether Christians have been kind or cruel. If Christian doctrine of God is correct, it is correct regardless of the sins of bishops. A scientific theory is not refuted by the vices of scientists, and the same applies here. To argue otherwise is to judge a claim by those who profess it, which was the fallacy examined in the last module.

Nor does it follow that a particular believer or institution is a reliable guide. A claim may be true while the people who proclaim it fail it. This is why the church has always distinguished between the holiness of Christ and the holiness of its members.

Step 2: What does follow

Several things do follow. The first is that Christians are accountable to their own standard. The faith claims that grace changes people and that love is the sign. If it were found that Christians were no better than others, or worse, the claim of transformation would be weakened. Critics can fairly ask for evidence of change.

The second is that the failure of the church affects its credibility as a witness. A teacher who says that he loves the poor and lives in luxury is not believed. The third is that some failures expose a flaw in a teaching or structure, not only in persons. When a doctrine is used again and again to justify cruelty, it should be re-examined. Christians have done this with doctrines used to defend slavery, which the churches came to reject.

Step 3: Fair standards of comparison

A fair comparison asks what the baseline is. Christians have done great harm, and they have also founded hospitals and universities, cared for the sick and poor, and led movements for reform. Secular movements and states have also committed great harm. The twentieth century regimes that suppressed religion were responsible for enormous killing. This does not excuse Christian wrongs, and it does show that the human problem is not unique to religion.

Two standards should be avoided. One is to count only the failures of the other side. The other is to excuse one’s own side by saying that those who failed were not true believers. Critics are right to complain about this last move. Jesus himself says that the field contains both wheat and weeds. The church should accept that it is a mixture and say so.

Step 4: What Christians should say

A Christian can say three things together. First, these things were done, they were wrong, and the church should be sorry. Second, the faith itself calls Christians to repentance, and the Gospels are the standard by which the church is judged. Third, the claims of the faith about Christ stand or fall on other evidence, which the critic is invited to examine. It is important to say them in this order. To begin with the third is to appear to be changing the subject.

Some of the most powerful testimony for faith has come from communities that took the failures seriously. Reform movements such as the monastic revivals, the Reformation and the Catholic reforms were reactions to corruption and are part of the church’s story.

  1. Is the critic asking about the truth of the claim or the credibility of the witness?
  2. Is the fruits standard being applied fairly, with a fair baseline?
  3. Am I tempted to say that failures do not count because the people were not true Christians?
  4. Has the failure revealed something wrong in a teaching or structure?
  5. What did those who reformed the church appeal to?
  6. What would honest repentance look like in this case?

Examples

A false inference

A man says that because a famous minister was found to be a fraud, Christianity is false. A friend asks whether the resurrection of Jesus is less likely because of the minister’s fraud. The man sees that the inference is weak, but he still finds it hard to trust the church. (A constructed example.)

A fair inference

A woman notices that a congregation which preaches love is cold to newcomers and gossips about its members. She concludes that the claim that the Spirit changes lives is not supported in this congregation. She does not conclude that no congregation shows it. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Critics

Critics such as Gandhi, Nietzsche and many others have said that the behavior of Christians gives reason to doubt that faith does what is claimed. Some secular writers argue that moral progress came from secular sources, not religion, and that religion’s role has been exaggerated by defenders. They ask for evidence and not for assertion.

Catholic

Catholic teaching holds that the church is holy in her origin and her means of grace, and also made up of sinners who need repentance. The Second Vatican Council said in Lumen Gentium that the church is at once holy and always in need of purification. Pope John Paul II’s acts of repentance in 2000 for the sins of the church’s sons and daughters were a public application of this teaching.

Orthodox

Orthodox writers teach that the church is the body of Christ and so holy, and that its members are on a path of repentance. They stress that the saints show what the faith can do and do not claim that everyone in the church is a saint. The great liturgy contains confessions of sin from the whole community. They warn against judging the church by its worst members only.

Protestant

Protestants, following Augustine, hold that the visible church is a mixed body of wheat and tares and that only God knows the true church. Reformed churches speak of the marks of the church as the word rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered, and also of discipline. Many Protestants have written that the church must always reform, and the Reformation itself began as a protest against corruption.

Why it matters

This lesson ties together the whole module. It lets a student say yes to the critic’s best point, that Christians have done wrong and must answer for it, without agreeing that the whole matter is therefore settled. It also gives a guide for fair judgment of any group, including the student’s own.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Christian failures are irrelevant to whether Christianity is true.

Correction: They do not decide the truth of historical claims. They do bear on the credibility of the witness and on the claim that faith changes lives.

Misunderstanding: Christian failures prove Christianity false.

Correction: This confuses the faith with the conduct of those who profess it. The Gospels themselves predict that the field will contain wheat and weeds.

Misunderstanding: The people who did wrong were not real Christians.

Correction: This is often an evasion. The Christian tradition teaches that believers can sin gravely and need repentance, and a fair account should not remove them from the story.

Misunderstanding: The record of religion is worse than that of any other group.

Correction: Historians compare many institutions, religious and secular, and find grave harms in both. The comparison does not excuse any, and it requires fair baselines.

Knowledge check

Why does the failure of Christians not decide whether Christianity is true?

Because the truth of claims about Christ, such as that he rose from the dead, depends on the evidence for those events and not on the conduct of his followers. A scientific theory is not disproved by the vices of scientists. To judge a claim by those who profess it is a form of the genetic fallacy.

In what ways do Christian failures properly count against Christians?

They weaken the credibility of the church as a witness and test its own claim that grace transforms lives. They also may show that a doctrine or structure has been used to justify harm, which should lead to re-examination, as happened with arguments for slavery. The standard comes from the Gospels, which the church accepts as binding on itself.

What is the problem with saying that no true Christian would do such things?

It saves the claim by redefining the group so that counter-examples do not count, and so cannot be tested. It also contradicts Christian teaching that believers sin and that the church is a mixed body of wheat and tares. A fair account should include the failures and judge them honestly.

What three things might a Christian say together in answer to a critic of the church?

He might say that the wrongs were done and were wrong, and that he is sorry. He might say that the faith itself calls the church to repentance and judges it. And he might add that the claims about Christ stand on other evidence which he invites the critic to examine. The order matters so that the answer does not seem to evade the charge.

Think it through

  1. What failure by Christians has most weakened your trust in the church?
  2. Which fruits of the faith have you seen in the lives of people you know?
  3. How can you tell a doctrine’s misuse from a doctrine’s fault?
  4. Is it fair to ask the same of your own unbelieving friends and institutions?

Independent assignment

The fruits test applied fairly

In your notebook, write 500 to 700 words on this question: what follows and what does not follow from the failures of Christians for the truth of Christianity? Include one concession, one fair comparison with a secular institution and one thing the failures should lead the church to do. Do not send it.

Further study