I am so tired of hearing Christians say “Christians aren’t perfect” as an excuse for bad Christian behavior.
The statement can also come out like this:
“Well, the church is a hospital for sick people.”
or
“No church is perfect.”
or
“Christians are sinners too.”
or my favorite of all (*barf*),
“Christians aren’t perfect … just forgiven.”
These sorts of statements are usually said when you are critical of a church, a church leader, or some other Christian for something they said or did.
If you say that a pastor doesn’t practice what he preaches, or if a church makes poor decisions about how to spend their money, or if a Christian group behaves meanly, arrogantly, or rudely toward some non-Christian group, the response you will often get back is “Well, Christians aren’t perfect.”
Seriously?
What is so hard about saying
“You are right. That was mean. I am sorry.”
or
“That was selfish. I am sorry.”
or
“That was insensitive and judgmental. I am sorry.”
It is true that everything we need to know in life we learned in Kindergarten, and one of the main things we learned in Kindergarten was the importance of saying we’re sorry to others when we hurt them.
Many of us Christians need to go back to Kindergarten to learn the lesson all over again. When we hurt someone (even if it is unintentional), we need to say “I’m sorry.”
(By the way, apologizing for all the pain we experience in life is one of the things God was doing in Jesus on the cross. Think on it!)
And please, don’t add a “but” to your apology. Don’t say, “I’m sorry, but …”. Grace has no but, and neither do apologies.
And as long as I’m on the subject …
Usually when Christians say, “Well, Christians aren’t perfect either,” they then go on to point out the sin in other people, and if you challenge them on why they can point out sin in the lives of others, they say, “I can’t just overlook sin. Someone has to point out sin in people’s life. If I keep silent, I am condoning the sin.”
I have three things to say against this line of thought.
First, maybe someone does need to point out sin in other people’s life. But that someone is not you. It is the job of the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin (John 16:8). So unless you are a member of the Trinity, you don’t need to point out the sin in other people’s lives.
Second, if you point out sin in other people’s lives, but then justify your own rude sinful behavior by saying, “Well, nobody’s perfect,” what kind of hypocrisy is that? You don’t want other people to justify their own sin, but you are more than happy to justify your own by saying, “Christians aren’t perfect”?
Third, yes, yes, yes, I am falling into the same trap here myself by pointing out sinful behavior in the lives of others instead of just letting the Holy Spirit do it, and yes, maybe my tone here is not that loving or kind toward my sinning Christian brethren who talk rudely and unkindly toward others.
But you know what? You should just let me be mean and rude and angry toward you because, after all, “Christians aren’t perfect.”
This is G R E A T !!! I had a ‘christian’ tell me the other day about how upset she was when she wasn’t given an apology from someone who unintentionally hurt her. It was all I could do to not say “Are you kidding me?” After the whole big mess that happened — she expected an apology and didn’t get one. So she gripes about it. Weird. Now who was the one with the bad behavior?
“Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect!”
All the Christian Cults teach that a member of their organization MUST be Perfect in keeping all the Rules of their groups in order to maintain a right standing with God. Look at the suicide rates in Utah – home of the Mormon Religion. Mormons teach a rigorous, exacting standard of Holiness that ALL their Church members must meet in order to be in good standing with the Lord. That is Heresy and a denial of the Atonement.
No Christians are NOT Perfect and they never will be in the Flesh. Perfection comes on that day when we are Glorified in Eternity with God.
And NO…acknowledging that Christians are not Perfect is NOT saying that it is A OK for a Believer can act howsoever she/he wants to.
Hi I agree with you whole heartily. I never condone sin ever. However I think the slogan should be Christians need to love more and Judge less. God help us to do this right.Amen.
People often tell me “no church is perfect.” I usually ask, “is the church repentant? Is it open to rebuke and correction? I am fine if it isn’t perfect, but I can’t work with one that refuses to change.”
Nobody’s prefect. Excpt, possibly, this post. =)
I didn’t learn anything in kindergarten. I skipped it.
We rarely use the term “Christian” because so many who do use it do not represent who we are.
I remember a salesman for a “Christian Yellow Pages” who came into my business.
“Is the title of the book supposed to mean the businesses are run by Christians?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “But I don’t think most of them really are. They just want to give people the impression they’re honest, reliable and will give customers a great deal.”
We prefer “Followers of Jesus”. We try to follow Jesus and show his love to other people. We don’t have a need to point out their sin to them. Most people already know, and those who don’t won’t be convinced by us. The Spirit can do that.
We need the shirt “Christian Behaving Badly”
Thank you… Guilty and repenting!
“Many of us Christians need to go back to Kindergarten to learn the lesson all over again. When we hurt someone (even if it is unintentional), we need to say “I’m sorry.””
Like you, I am completely over the excuse of ‘not being perfect’ to justify bad behaviour, especially when that behaviour is so destructive and damaging to relationships. If a child of 4 can learn to say, “I’m sorry”, it can’t be that hard can it!? And yet, in my experience, it seems to be almost impossible to get an apology from a fellow christian – and the higher up the church hierarchy they are, the less likely they are to apologise 🙁
Hmmm. Hopefully it’s different in our families, eh? The higher up the “responsibility/leadership ladder” the MORE likely we are to repent and make restitution/aplogize… I’m workin’ on it (only by walking according to the Spirit, of course).
“The higher up the “responsibility/leadership ladder” the MORE likely we are to repent…”
Mark, can I just check that this statement is on the level? Are you saying you do believe that church ‘leaders’ are more likely to repent than those ‘in the pews’?
This doesn’t seem to be true. If so, why are leaders to be reprimanded? (But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning.)
John the Baptist isn’t part of the trinity. Paul isn’t either. They both pointed out sin. And so should we. The Holy Spirit convicts the works of sin and unbelief. That is His salvific
Ministry in the world and not a hush to us. We can and must preach truth and lovingly point out sin.
I guess I’m not following that the only time a sin should be brought up is never since the Holy Spirit will convict. There are two offenses, those that should be overlooked (A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.), and those for Matthew 18:20.
Doing so helps to encourage the end-point, which is Reconciliation, in that we all have the ministry of reconciliation as Christ reconciled us to God.
Jeremy proving that christians aren’t perfect by his blog post here. 🙂
I think ‘christians aren’t perfect’ is a good and necessary thing to say. I find that Today’s secular culture is actively hostile to christians. Some are looking for any way to attack them or ‘take them down.’ One way is demanding perfection from them. You’re put under a microscope and standard you never asked for or implied you were capable of is thrust upon you. And when you aren’t perfect, they point out your fault and say, “How can you call yourself a christian when you(do such and such minor offense)” and it’s often not good enough to say you’re sorry. The offense isn’t really the point, it’s to make you look bad.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
You’re sorry, is that the best you could do? How can you call yourself a christian when you ‘blah-blah-blah.’
Well, christians are perfect just forgiven.
Sorry, often we’re left with no other fitting response.
The catchphrase of “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” is a statement of humility. It is not intended to be an excuse for bad behavior or an invitation to continue to sin. Jesus told us that we must be perfect “as your Father in Heaven is Perfect.” — Matt 5:48. Paul reminds us that we have all “sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” Trying to live a Christian life is hard work because of our human failings. There is nowhere in the Bible where Christians are instructed to be complacent with themselves, their relationship with the Lord, and the world and each other.
Thank you for your thoughtful essay.
Thank you for this post, praying that it will be helpful to someone who says and does mean things, and does not say I am sorry, or even ask for forgiveness when confronted lovingly. But their go to is “I’m not perfect”, and get off “your high horse”
My experience of the saying ‘there’s no such thing as a perfect church’ usually pertains to people in church communities who don’t want to be challenged on a church not administering church discipline or having increasing levels of discipleship. That often leads back to some church members being influenced by modern culture and being irritated when challenged as to why they aren’t more biblically led. A person who claims there are no perfect Christians is also the type of person who will not accept having an imperfect husband. By that I mean a husband who is mostly faithful (with the odd slip up) because he’s going to drift now and then because ‘hey nobody is perfect’.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
In the 1980s, I used to see this bumper sticker on the back of many Caddilacs and Lincolns, late on Friday and Saturday nights, no doubt daddys car driven by their children: “Christians aren’t Perfect, Just Forgiven”. Guess which was the group most likely to get arrested for drugs and alcohol, and to take their girlfriends to get abortions.