Reply #9: Of course I know... [View All]

[Betty Karlson]

Wasn't it Xeppelt who wrote:

"Nowhere in history are human baseness and the pretention of holiness found in closer connection than in church history"

However, a 1994 study in religious psychology found that hypocrisy was more likely to occur among irregular church-goers than among either regular church goers or people who avoided church altogether.

So it would seem that the man is maybe not that religious after all. Not from a conservative Christian point of view.

And while I shouldn't be doing this, I may actually venture a hypthetical assessment of the man's religious being.

I would assume he is an irregular church-goer, as is about every second American Christian. I would also assume he would describe himself as an evangelical or reborn Christian. The lineair doctrine on sin and absolvation in evangelical theology is extremely fitting to self-excepting individuals. He would probably not read the Bible regularly; and if he does, not all of it in equal measure. He would believe in his minister's sound-bites rather than in the Word of God. The latter is thought-provoking, after all, whereas this man would be annoyed by provocations of his religious beliefs.

I would place him in the "My opinion is the Lord's opinion" crowd if this or most of it were true. If I were him, I would be very worried of using the Lord's name in vain. (But truth be told, I worry about that even without being him.)