Peter said, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.”
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”
But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the other disciples said the same.1
“My religion is true and yours is false because my dedication proves that I’m more sincere about mine than you are about yours.”
That’s not what the earnest cult member standing at my door said. But that is what he meant.
What he actually said was, “I go door to door sharing my faith. If your religion is true, then why don’t you go door to door too?”
I call this train of thought “tyrannical religious sincerity.” It’s the idea that one must demonstrate the superiority of one’s religion by “proving” it with increasingly extreme acts of service and sacrifice.
One of the most extreme examples of tyrannical religious sincerity in our day is ISIS. Motivating every ISIS fighter and homicidal martyr is the conviction, “We’re willing to sacrifice our very lives for what we believe. Our faith is true because we’re more sincere about our religion than anyone in the world is about theirs.”
There are, however, even greater examples than ISIS of tyrannical religious sincerity. Aztec, Inca and Mayan cultures, for example, practiced human sacrifice to prove how sincere they were about their religion. And the Old Testament demonstrates an awareness of human sacrifice in the Ancient Near East.2 (The BBC reports that even today the practice continues in Uganda.) 3
But there are three fallacies with tyrannical religious sincerity.
First, being sincere about one’s religion doesn’t make it true, no matter how fanatical you are about it. It’s possible to be sincerely wrong.
Second, how much is enough? As we have seen, there is always something more one can do to prove how sincere one is about one’s faith. The demands never stop. This is why I call it tyrannical.
Third, the mere act of trying to prove how sincere one is about one’s faith demonstrates insecurity about it. I sincerely believe the sun is going to come up tomorrow morning. I don’t have to do anything to prove how sincerely I believe that. All I have to do is wait.
What’s really fascinating about Christianity is that it turns tyrannical religious sincerity on its head. It calls us to confront the fact that we aren’t sincere and for doing that, it gives us something in return.
Peter and the rest of Jesus’ disciples thought they were sincere followers of his, even to the point of giving up their lives for him. But at this very moment they had succumbed to tyrannical religious sincerity. Jesus, in effect, says, “O really? I don’t think so. In fact, you’re going to deny me.”
The divine inversion of tyrannical religious sincerity doesn’t stop there. Instead of demanding that we sacrifice our lives and our children to prove our sincerity to God, God sacrifices his son, and his son sacrifices his life to prove their love for us.
The realization of God’s radical love for us breaks the power of tyrannical religious sincerity. It’s no longer a fear that we haven’t done enough that motivates us, but the overwhelming awareness that God has done it all through Jesus Christ, who will soon come again.
All we have to do is wait.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
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- Matthew 26:33-35, New International Version
- Wikipedia, “Child Sacrifice“
- Tim Whewell, “Witch-doctors reveal extent of child sacrifice in Uganda” BBC News, January 7, 2010
