A couple of weeks ago I sat down to review a manuscript from a talented young Christian writer. It was bold, blunt, and painfully honest—definitely not the typical Christian bookstore fare. On the first page he dropped the f-bomb and page three included a desperate and angry prayer that began, “Screw you, God…” The honesty he put on display in these pages seemed pretty brave to me and I have to admit to enjoying the little autobiographical journey he took me on. Many times I found myself smiling and nodding in agreement—“yeah, I know just how you feel…” I have always resonated with Frederick Buechner’s self-analysis of being “part Christian, part pig.”

I love the confessional style of Christian reflection that has become increasingly popular. I have smiled and wept through the pages of the brutally honest work of writers like Don Miller, Anne Lamott, Patton Dodd, and Craig Borlase. Like many, I find their honesty about their personal failings to be strangely comforting. It gives me the courage to set aside my attempts at plasticine piety and just be the flawed person that I really am…the ragamuffin who can never really seem to get this whole Christ-like thing nailed.

And yet…

I have lately began to wonder if a steady diet of this perspective tends to make us a little bit cynical about the possibility of really being changed by God. Can it make us become so comfortable with being a “pig” that we lose sight of the miraculous change that is a part of the good news Christ offers?

The Barna organization recently polled a group of non-believers about what characteristics they thought of when they heard the word “Christian.” One of the most common responses was “hypocritical.” Ok, well that isn’t too surprising. My first gut response was this: yeah, I have definitely seen a lot of hypocrisy in the church, but hey, we certainly don’t have a corner on being hypocritical. We live in a culture where hypocrisy is commonplace.  And I guess I am not alone in that perception, because a lot of the respondents to the Barna survey said generally the same thing—they thought that Christians were hypocritical, but then again, what do you expect…everyone is hypocritical.

How sad if our cynicism about ourselves leads to complacency.

Maybe that is the problem. Are we in danger of becoming so comfortable with our flawed humanity that we settle for less than what God has offered to us? The good news includes the hope of really being transformed, of becoming different, of becoming a better person—more loving, more caring, more patient; less ruled by our anger and selfishness and weakness.

Of course the path of transformation is a path that comes with a price: the discipline of taking our faith seriously enough that we really lean on God to help us make better choices, become kinder and more compassionate, and expend the effort to draw closer to Him through prayer and Scripture reading and contemplation.

It is not an either/or. I don’t think we can really be changed until we admit that we are often more pig-like than Christian. We need to be reminded that our journey will always be a process of moving toward God with our imperfections intact. Otherwise, we may be tempted to just settle in behind our little masks of nicety. But I think it worth remembering Paul’s reflection from 1 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” That seems like a promise that even the most cynical would want to embrace.