The Danger of Hypocrisy

I'm pretty judicious about my Sports Illustrated. Usually, no matter what the cover story is, I start at the beginning. I read the short pieces at the start of the magazine as kind of an appetizer to the big, meatier stories that come at the end. It's a weekly process. That is, until I ran up on this this cover:

(cleveland.com - from Sports Illustrated)

I couldn't resist. I'm a huge college football fan and it's June and I'm desperate for any college football talk this time of year. Moreover, I've been fascinated by the story of Jim Tressel and Ohio State. Now, full disclosure here. I'm a self-avowed UGA fanatic and an SEC snob. I grew up on Southern football. But, I don't hate Ohio State or the Big 10 like a lot of other SEC fans do. In fact, I greatly admired Tressel. I appreciated his character and how he handled himself with class. I also have an affinity for coaches that wear ties, and he is just about the last of his breed in that regard. Ohio State has cool colors, too. My high school unis my freshman year looked almost identical to the Buckeyes and the local high school team I cheer for now, Archer, looks a lot like OSU. Plus, my Dawgs wear red and silver. So, I'm drawn to the color. (Yes, I'm THAT simple). Anyway, I liked Jim Tressel. And don't hate OSU.

That being said, some of the stuff in that article is terribly damaging. And the damage I'm most worried about is to the Kingdom of God. What concerns me most is how a leader who says he is a devout Christian can be so terribly deceived. According to the article, it's been going on a long time. One former colleague said this of Tressel from back in his younger days when he was in charge of football camp at OSU and would rig raffles so that star high school recruits won the prizes:

"In the morning he would read the Bible with another coach. Then, in the afternoon, he would go out and cheat kids who had probably saved up money from mowing lawns to buy those raffle tickets. That's Jim Tressel."

As I read that, I thought, "That's about the awfulest thing you can say about anyone." And my next thought was this: "I hope no one ever says that about me and my faith." Hypocrisy. It is one of the most dangerous things in Christendom. Hypocrisy can under mind good intentions. One moment of hypocrisy can ruin decades of faithfulness. Studies show that one of the main reasons that outsiders don't come to church is because of hypocrisy. They don't see the difference between Christians and non-Christians. Who can blame them. We often say one thing and do another. We claim one way of life but act out another. Look, no one is perfect. We all have our moments. What I think God wants from us is an attitude of obedience. What breaks my heart about Tressel is that a man of faith was led astray by some kind of faulty thinking that he didn't have to follow the rules and that it was okay to say one thing but do another. Maybe it was his position that did that. Maybe it happened slowly over time. I don't know the man. However, I know we are all capable of talking ourselves into believing that our hypocrisy is okay. It's not. Let the Church be known as faithful, not hypocrites.