Living With Integrity

It seems that fewer and fewer people live with integrity. Politicians intentionally distort the truth in order to gain support for their political positions and pet projects. People lie in the workplace, both bosses and those who work for them, in order to cover up for their own shortcomings. It seems like we regularly hear about celebrities who have been dishonest with their spouses or children. If it happens to them, it happens to many more people who are just not well enough known to have their story reach the news.

Sadly, it also happens with Christians. This week, Jonathan Acuff discussed this very thing on the Belief Blog of CNN with a piece titled: “My Take: Why Christians Are Jerks Online” (Read the complete blog entry here). Acuff writes his own blog www.stuffchristianslike.net and has recently written a book titled Stuff Christians Like.

Acuff makes the point that Jesus taught us the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Then, he asks these questions: “So then why are there so many hateful Christian blogs? Why do Christians write bitter messages on Twitter? Why do we send hate mail?” He offers two conclusions:

(1) The business traveler approach — Many people, Christians and non-Christians, are different people when they are away from home and no one knows them. Acuff suggests that Christians treat the Internet the same way, approaching it like the normal rules of their lives don’t count on the Internet. They write hateful things and portray unloving attitudes under the guise of “whatever happens on the Internet stays on the Internet.”

(2) Room cleaning Christianity — Acuff discusses how energized a college student will become about cleaning his/her room when a final paper is due. We do that, he suggests with loving our neighbor. It is hard to love someone who is not easy to love. So instead of showing our neighbor the grace of God, we get online and police people. We find small things to focus on that will distract us.

Christians, though, are to live with integrity whether we are in a different environment where no one will likely recognize us or when we notice the little problems in people’s live and become critical of them. That is, we are to be the same people and loving people in every circumstance.

Joseph was this kind of person. As we have begun to look at his life in my messages and our adult class discussion this summer, that becomes clear almost immediately. The stories we are studying about his life are captivating, but even more they demonstrate how to live with integrity in a world where integrity is often absent. You can change that: live with integrity.