November 21, 2022
For me, archetypes are a useful way for my brain to simplify and make connections. In my book I described the “Angry Bitter Atheist” and the “Traumatized Empty Shell,” and one of the first articles on this blog was Thinking Christians VS Feeling Christians. Today I will describe the “Hated Christian.”
You probably encountered this guy at some point during your time in the Church. You may have even been this guy.
This is the guy who comes across verses such as Matthew 10:22 (“You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”) and something about it just clicks with him. He suddenly decides he needs to take this very literally—perhaps because he feels convicted for not taking his faith as seriously as he should be. Whatever the cause, the Hated Christian now decides that if people don’t hate him, then he’s doing something wrong.
The Hated Christian then proceeds to annoy and piss off everyone around him for the glory of the Lord.
- When talking to non-believers, he shoehorns a blatant gospel presentation into the conversation because not doing so means he isn’t doing his “evangelism duties.”
- When talking to believers—including his own friends—he nitpicks everything about their spiritual life: their actions, their quiet times, their struggles, and then tries to pull them out of the “lukewarm” cesspool they’ve fallen into.
- He even takes it upon himself to critique the theology and practices of church pastors, leaders, elders, and programs for incorrect theology or areas that the Hated Christian feels are lacking—usually the Church failing to incite strong enough action in their congregation.
When the Hated Christian emerges from the ashes to rouse a lethargic Church community, everyone collectively rolls their eyes and sighs heavily. Here we go again.
Because while they understand where the Hated Christian is coming from, know his intentions are good, and reluctantly admit that he’s right in many instances, it doesn’t change the fact that the Hated Christian is really fucking annoying.
And there’s no stopping the Hated Christian. He breeds a self-feeding cycle—the more he pisses people off, the more the Hated Christian is encouraged that he’s on the right track. All because the Bible told him so.
Back when I was a believer, whenever I considered the idea of becoming a Hated Christian, I’d always evaluate the pros and cons of such an approach. I came to the same conclusion every time: what Hated Christians said was more or less correct, but it usually behooves any evangelistic effort to take into consideration the way that the material is presented and to not forget about the nurturing of relationships, neither of which a Hated Christian is normally concerned with.
In my experience, the Hated Christian is a phase that someone goes through rather than a new lifestyle they adopt long-term. Why? At some point, he eventually looks around and realizes he’s alienated everyone and no one takes him seriously anymore. He finally sees that his behavior has wrecked his entire testimony and witness, and no matter how much he desires to evangelize the gospel, no one will listen to him anymore. He’s therefore forced to chill out.
What’s crazy to admit is that the Hated Christian is probably more right than he is wrong—as far as Biblical living is concerned. The way he lives, thinks, and rebukes is probably the most accurate method for a “true believer” to conduct themselves in the world. The fact that living this way is merely a phase and usually does more harm than good demonstrates the unsustainability of a fundamentalist life.
From what I can tell, people go through a Hated Christian phase because they suddenly get convicted of being “lukewarm.” The Bible warns about lukewarm Christians in Revelation 3:16 (“So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”).
However, that verse rarely came up in my quiet times or sermons that I heard. Rather, the danger of being lukewarm was drilled into my head by Francis Chan in his book Crazy Love. That was the first time I ever felt tempted (and “convicted”) to start living more like a Hated Christian.
Yet, I just couldn’t bring myself to irritate the people around me. To me, it was counter intuitive. Further, the concept of a lukewarm Christian sent my brain into overdrive trying to quantify it: exactly what was the threshold of lukewarm? What did I have to do to not be considered lukewarm (while also considering that good deeds supposedly meant nothing)? Where is the line drawn?
It was all very overwhelming and stressful for someone who already tends to overthink.