Does Christianity Have Faults?

Particularly when it comes to Christianity, the past is often seen by outsiders as merely a collection of tableaux that sit fixed in one’s mind as stark moral lessons: Christians mounted bloody Crusades against noble Muslims; Christians burned hapless women as witches; Christians foolishly resisted scientists such as Galileo and Darwin; Christians oppressed women and spoiled sex; Christians overran and dominated native peoples; Christians abused the earth. For many of our neighbours, the Christian past is simply a chamber of cultural horrors…Our civilization has been deeply marked by Christianity – by it’s faults but also by its gifts and glories.

– John Stackhouse Jr., Humble Apologetics (2002), p. 50-51.

In an apologetic conversation, an impasse is often reached on the issue of the past faults, failings and mistakes of Christianity – incidents like those mentioned in the above quote. The impasse occurs because Christians find it hard to unreservedly say ‘That kind of Christianity is wrong’ and those outside the faith have no desire to align themselves with a community whose tradition includes such shames.

On the Christian side of things, I think this occurs because Christians are not sure whether they are able to say that Christianity has its faults, or whether they need to bite a bullet and maintain that Christianity is perfect. We are worried that by criticising Christianity, we will be paving the way for serious objections to make ground – claims such as Christianity does not communicate the truth about God, the Bible is not trustworthy, Jesus’ words do not give life, there is no God.

Perhaps what this points out is the need to distinguish between Christianity construed of as a cultural movement, and Christianity construed of as the work of God in action. With this distinction in place, a criticism of peoples, times, activities, and agendas, does not translate so easily into a criticism of Jesus’ words or lead to claiming that God doesn’t exist. To run these two notions together makes it impossible for Christians to criticise Christianity (or to listen to criticism), since, on this construal of things, to concede that Christianity has flaws supposes that an implicit criticism of Jesus or God is entailed, rather than merely a criticism of the particular activity of a historically located group. Looking at the tragic list above that Stackhouse recites, it seems to be that a lesson from church history is that when Christians are suspicious of criticism from within and closed to criticism from without, awful things are able to be done under the guise of Christianity.

This all can be reduced to the question: As Christians, are we comfortable talking about the faults, failings and weaknesses of Christianity as a cultural movement? Are we comfortable talking about Christianity as being (in a sense) a cultural movement rather than (unreservedly) the workings of God? Are we open to others shining a light on supposed faults, failings and weaknesses? Or do we believe that Christianity is beyond criticism?

For a movement that began as a Jewish man warned Israel, ‘Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven has come near’, I have my suspicions.