You plop down on the beach, the kids go spiraling off to the water like dolphins in a boat’s wake, you take an overdue deep breath and stare at the horizon, and that’s the point at which you realize a thought has been hitchhiking in the boxcar of your prefrontal cortex.  It’s been there for a while, but you haven’t noticed it until now.

I remember in the 80s watching the scandals of the Bakkers and Jimmy Swaggart ripple through the late night comedians and into the minds and mouths of my schoolmates.  I was fairly cognizant of the fact that Christians were generally getting smeared.  I read Elmer Gantry for the first time back then.  And I remember saying, “We’re not all like that!”

Since then I picked up a little hitchhiker.

Now I listen to a rising generation dismissively writing off the church with the under-thought branding, “hypocrites.” But I know that the more they study history and the more they look in the mirror, the more they will regret holding anyone else up to that righteous standard.  Now I hear people accuse Christians of hypocrisy, and I’m inclined to answer, “Absolutely.  We’re all like that.”  Inside the church and out.  We’re all like that.

Proves we need a savior.