Too often I've heard non-Christians refer to Christians as being "holier than thou" people who act like they are perfect while the rest of the huddled masses are nothing more than hopeless sinners. I heard it a good deal when I was a part of the media focus last semester when Whim Internet Magazine's "Christ on Campus" cartoon series became a local and national controversy. On a handful of occasions people would come up to me and claim that I said that I was a blameless, sinless person and the folks at Whim were all hell-bound sinners who deserve what's coming to them.

In truth, nothing could be further from the truth. True, I claimed that the series projected an incorrect image of Jesus Christ, God, Christians and the Christian faith but I never claimed anyone at Whim to be horrible people. I did, at one point, claim that some of the things that it published last season were on the questionable side but I never said anything about the people that work there. I even went as far as to counter those who said that cartoonist Christian Keesee was hell-bound for creating the series by reminding them that he is a Christian and is thus saved by the blood of Jesus Christ in the speech I made at the "Religion and the Media" forum hosted by the Philosophy and Religious Studies Club March 8.

As one might expect, I was met with a handful of emails in the next few days after the forum took place. Some of them were complimentary and some of them were not, as one might also expect. Again, the "quit acting all high-and-mighty" point was brought up, truly baffling me. Confused, I sat one day during Spring Break thinking about how the public perceives Christians and one of the largest misconceptions that Christians believe that they are perfect.

First off, any Christian that claims to be perfect needs to re-check his or her Bible. Romans 3:23 tells us, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Therefore, every person on this planet, Christian and non-Christian alike, have sinned against the Father. The only person in the entire course of history who has made it from start to finish on this earth having lived a sinless life was Jesus Christ (see Hebrews 4:14-16, Hebrews 9:14, 1 Peter 1:18-19, 1 Peter 2:22 and Philippians 2:5-10). I know that there are some Christians who do claim to be faultless however they are a very small minority within the Christian community and should one day have their eyes opened to the truth.

Everyone else who is a Christian recognizes that they have failed in their lives and should find a future in the fire. Thankfully, that future does not exist once Jesus Christ is a person's Lord and Savior because he died to save the world from sin. Christians and most non-Christians alike are quite aware of the well-known verse from the Gospel of John, specifically John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him."

Christians get slapped with the "holier than thou" tag because non-believers perceive our faith in Christ to save us from our sins as being somewhat better than everyone else. In all reality, we are just like non-Christians - we commit sin. I will openly admit that I have failed so many times in my life when I shouldn't have and they have had their consequences. I have lied, gambled, disrespected my parents on numerous occasions (even still), wasted my gifts on laziness, been prideful, desired another person's things, held contempt against my fellow man and even fellow believers in some occasions, used the Lord's name improperly, used foul language and had problems with sexual immorality (just to name a few). Some of these things have really bothered me because of their consequences but what is done is done and cannot be undone. Like my fellow Christians, I have failed. But like my fellow Christians, I repent and use my failures as a springboard to strengthen myself for the future.

This is something that I feel that helps make me a better person and Christian. According to some, it isn't exactly what Paul intended the passage to mean when he wrote it, but I think that 2 Corinthians 12:7a-10 describes this quite well, "there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'"

Some pastors claim that the thorn refers to a physical ailment that hit Paul but I have heard others claim that it could be used loosely to refer to sin as well. Either way, when sin strikes a Christian, there is a time to feel bad that it happened and repent but since Christ saved those who believe in Him from sin, it must move into the past and be reflected upon only to strengthen us by reminding us of what we did to help us avoid doing it in the future. Sure, we could very well commit the same sin in the future but we will recall the previous times it happened in the past and will, hopefully, push us away from disobeying Him. (I'd call this the "cookie jar principle" - a little child will likely put his hand in the cookie jar and be punished for doing so. The next time that scenario arises, the child will remember what happened in the past and hopefully refrain from sticking his hand in the jar again.)

I cannot stress how much it confuses me to hear people say that we think we are perfect - we do not. We have all stuck our hand in the cookie jar multiple times in our lives and will do so again in the future but the slate is wiped clean by the blood of Christ which is pure and Holy. Does that make us better people than a random non-Christian you pick off of the street? Of course not. We have all failed. Think of things like a baseball season - nobody in the entire history of the game has played a full season and hit 1.000. (Here's a link for those not familiar with batting averages.) The only difference is that God's incredible love for us has given us a way to free ourselves from eternal punishment for those sins - Jesus Christ.

(Photo Credit: http://www.goldcountrybaptist.org/home/1477/1477/images/cross_sunset.jpg)