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When it suits them, HCs obey His Word and are self-righteous. And when it suits them, they disobey His Word and are self-righteous. Note that this is not simply a "falling short of perfection"; this is the consistent, intentional, selective corruption of His Word. An HC's driving force is usually money or material things (often ill gotten), as well as manipulation for the controlling fun of it. It also involves the old pop psychology chestnut about making others feel bad to make yourself feel good. But this chestnut is wrapped in the Bible: Thou shall faithfully weareth the cloak of thy Lord thy God on thy sleeve, for all the village to behold, and be swathed in the airs of righteousness. Now if you try to question their true motives, they're well positioned to be "holier than thou." It's brilliant.

There is an HC hierarchy: 1) leaders; 2) followers; and 3) "unwitting" accomplices. We use quotations around "unwitting" because these individuals say they don't know what's going on or say they want to stay "out of the middle," while actively keeping themselves ignorant--ignoring truths, often irrefutable truths, that would prove their HC leader's hypocrisy and wrongdoing and their own culpability. This makes them as guilty as the HC leaders, similar to the Nuremburg Commission's determination that "just following orders" and feigning ignorance doesn't absolve one of responsibility for their misconduct.

If you were looking for a psychiatric parallel, borderline personality disorder might be the closest. Most Hypocritical Christians fit the diagnosis tightly, while for some it's an imperfect analogy. In I Hate You--Don't Leave Me! Jerold Kriesman and Hal Straus describe BPD as "emotional hemophilia; [a borderline] lacks the clotting mechanism needed to moderate their spurts of feeling" (1989). You could acquire this characteristic over time if you were a money-grubbing confidence artist, constantly using your faith to disguise your true motives. Combine this with some of the following elements to complete the picture:

misplaced anger (at those who might question their confidence games)
manipulation (of their followers and of those who might question their confidence games)
being easily manipulated (by an HC leader)
dependency (on their HC leader)
entitlement (to the money they're trying to grub)
selfishness / narcissism (their needs and desires are always most important)
histrionics (overreacting to any suspicions of dishonesty or deceit toward them or their HC leader)
projection (all HCs are crack experts at turning the blame back on you)
parroting (closely related to projection, HCs will take critical words you've said to them and start accusing you of the same things verbatim)

After years of embracing these personality traits to hide their tracks, Hypocritical Christians evolve to a point where they believe their own prevarications and fabrications. What started as conscious acting has now been incorporated into who they are.

M. Scott Peck, M.D. (psychiatrist and Christian), nailed HCs in his book Further Along The Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth when he wrote:

The "people of the lie" are characterized by their ability to lie to themselves, as well as to others, and to insist on being ignorant of their own faults or wrongdoing. Their guiding motive is to feel good about themselves, at all costs, at all times, no matter what evidence there may be that points to their sin or imperfection. Rather than using it to make some kind of self-correction, they will instead--often at great expense of energy--set about trying to exterminate the evidence. They will use all the power at their disposal to impose their wills onto someone else in order to protect their own sick selves. And that is where most of their damage to others is done, in that inappropriate extermination, that inappropriate blaming (1993).

If you're trying to embezzle Grandpa's nest egg before he dies and you need to keep bothersome siblings and cousins at bay while you do it, these are great skills to hone.

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There are three topics you should avoid discussing in polite company: politics, religion, and auto leasing. We'll define polite company as people you don't know very well, such as your husband's boss or your new daughter-in-law. A pleasant chat involving any of these subjects can turn into an emotional argument in a second. People can be hyper-passionate about these things.

So let's talk about religion--Christianity, to be specific. Now, we know that Christians come in many different denominations and sects. But in order to transcend these divisions, let's use the categories of liberal, moderate, conservative, and hypocritical. For this discussion we're going to keep our religious persuasions to ourselves to minimize the appearance of any bias. We think we still have that right, not withstanding any new Patriot Act amendments.

Liberal and moderate Christians are believers who are not so inflexible that they can accept the possibility that the Bible is a document of its time. They're at least open to the idea that many Christian teachings were framed in the language and images of the 1st and 2nd centuries--that many, if not most, Biblical stories are parables or allegories designed to illustrate Jesus' principles in ways the people of the time could understand. Liberal and moderate Christians still strongly believe in Jesus' fundamental guidelines for human relationships and that Jesus is the Son of God. They also modestly believe that theirs is one of many roads that lead to the mountaintop. They tend to place principles over dogma.

It is important to note here that almost everyone living in the 0100s C.E. (aka A.D.) and earlier was illiterate. A very small number of people were scholars who could read aloud to the followers, and an even fewer number of those were amateur scribes who volunteered to hand-write copies of the Gospels for limited distribution--Johann Gutenberg's printing press was still thirteen centuries in the future. Mistakes in copying were inevitable. Also, if a scribe deemed it necessary to make changes in the writings to reinforce a particular perspective, he made them. Before the New Testament Gospels were pared down to the familiar four and assembled, there were many different Christian perspectives. Scholars and scribes representing the competing factions were all angling for influence, and their Gospel modifications often conflicted with one another. Ultimately the proponents of the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John collection won out, but the conflicts in Scripture remained (Ehrman, 2005).

Conservative Christians believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Therefore, the ONLY way to salvation is through Jesus Christ. They believe the Bible is the literal record of what happened and what God/Jesus said. Verbatim. Period. The only issue with this is that the earliest existing copies we have of the New Testament originated in the 3rd or 4th century, begging the question: how many changes were made by scribes between the generation or two after Jesus lived (when the first Gospels were composed) and the copying of the earliest existing versions of the New Testament? How much did mortal man change God's divine words? And how much was lost or changed inadvertently through three or four translations--a strain on accuracy under the best of conditions (Ehrman, 2005)? Though the original scriptures are believed to be Divinely inspired, the translations are not (New World, 1950).

In any event, conservative Christians believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God--and we respect their beliefs. In practical terms they also conscientiously endeavor to follow Jesus' principles for human relationships: Golden Rule, non-judgment, forgiveness, compassion, love thy neighbor, honor your parents, don't cause others to sin, no false witness, and so on. These are excellent guidelines to live by. Many of our favorite people are Conservative Christians.

The fourth category is Hypocritical Christians. HCs. They place dogma firmly above principles. This group typically includes the occasional (TV) preacher, bake sale committee member, Sunday school volunteer, or other congregation member. (Not all, just the occasional . . . Are we clear on this? Crystal?). HCs act as if they own Christianity, that if you don't do it their way, your practice of Christianity is illegitimate. They are also narcissistic confidence artists dressed up in Conservative Christian personas. (For this reason, Conservative Christians are often unfairly confused with HCs.)

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