Does Christianity Still Make Sense?Muestra

What’s with All the Scandals in the Church?

It’s no secret that the church has seen better days. It seems as if another crisis occurs in the church almost every week, whether it’s through the actions of a denomination or through a prominent individual who has some sort of moral or doctrinal failure—or, worse yet, leaves the faith altogether. But the truth is, the church has always been under fire. Apart from the brief honeymoon season depicted in Acts 2:42-47, it didn’t take long for the church to experience a public relations crisis. To see what I mean firsthand, just open your Bible to 1 Corinthians and read about it for yourself. That church was a mess, and yet Paul still had high hopes for them.

In our day, some critics of Christianity would go so far as to use these scandals in the church to discount the truth of Christianity altogether. So, how can we still make sense of Christianity in the face of so much scandal down through the ages? Don’t these examples of imperfect Christians negate the truthfulness of Christianity itself? Fortunately, no. Allow me to show you why, using a syllogism—that is, a logical argument containing two premises and a conclusion. Here’s how it works. If the two premises are both true, it follows logically that the conclusion will also be true. Syllogisms can be useful in helping us recognize loopholes in our thinking. So, here we go. To claim that scandals disprove Christianity would be the equivalent of the following argument:

Premise 1: If scandals exist in the church, then Christianity is not true.

Premise 2: Scandals exist in the church.

Conclusion: Therefore, Christianity is not true.

The problem with this argument is obvious: Premise 1 is a false assertion. Scandals may disappoint us, but they don’t negate the truthfulness of Christianity. Neither do they provide a good reason to reject Christianity. Besides, it’s not as if scandals are merely a Christian problem. Scandals are a human problem. Wherever you find people, there you’ll also find scandals.

And though it’s true that scandals hurt our credibility as Christians, they don’t hurt the credibility of Christ. He’s the only one who ever lived without moral failure, and consequently, he’s the only one who can truly forgive us for the sins that lead to our scandals. To wrap things up, here’s a final point worth considering: To deny the truth of Christianity because of scandals in the church puts too much stock in people. Our hope was never meant to be placed in humanity, but in Christ. People will always let us down. Count on it. If we put too much hope and trust in other people, we will become hopeless in our faith when they let us down. Jesus is where our hope rests.

Thought to Chew On: Scandals in the church remind us to get our eyes off people and place them on Jesus, the one who will never let us down.