Faking It Doesn't Make It
If you ever feel like the economy is tough, take heart, you could be fake-employed, like countless young workers in China who are joining "fake" companies which host "fake" employees. The workplace looks real. There are cubicles and computers, copy machines and break rooms. All the sights, sounds, and "feel" of a real office. But it's all just a facade! And for a small fee, all of these fake features can be yours. According to reports:
The rate's not too expensive; you'll pay around $5 per day to go in and pretend to do work. (What it costs you in dignity, on the other hand, is something else.)
It's not a total loss, meanwhile! The fee can sometimes include 'lunch, snacks and drinks,'and moreover fake workers can use the fake workday to 'search for jobs, or to try to launch their own start-up businesses.'
Many express that it doesn't just give them a place from which to look for "real" employment, but it provides them a place to feel like they belong, a place where they can share camaraderie with their fake workmates, a place to find social fulfillment through relationships forged with their fellow fakers at the water cooler or break room, and primarily, a place to provide them with a sense of purpose and structure.
But alas, it is all hollow. In the words of one such company's advertisement (literally called the "Pretend To Work Company") ...
Here in my company, we pretend to work. There is no activity. You are unemployed, so come to me and do what you want.
Sadly, the post-modern, post-Christian era church has all too much in common with these fake companies. Hoards of attenders gather in beautfiful structures, longing for a sense of belonging, a sense of camaraderie, social fulfillment, and above all else, a sense of purpose and structure ... but all without a geneuine comittment to the real thing.
Structure without substance. Fellowship without faith. Participation without personal comittment, without genuine profession, without power to save.
As church leaders, we are challenged to provide genuine structure AND substance where posers can be salvifically transformed into genuine believers, finding true fellowhip in the very real family of God.
As attenders, we are all challenged to ask ourselves, why are we really here?
" ... having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people" (2 Timothy 3:5, ESV).
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity. / In the same way, on the outside you appear to be righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness" (Matthew 23:27-28, NIV).
"They profess to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed" (Titus 1:6, NIV).
"Therefore the Lord said: “These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men" (Isaiah 29:13, NIV).
"Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, / influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron" (1 Timothy 4:1-2)
Does it Really Pay to Break the Rules
She was paid $1 Million per year to research and teach on the topics of "honesty and ethical behavior," but no longer. As of May 28, 2025, Harvard University researcher Francesca Gino has lost her tenure.
Why? Mik Olson of Not the Bee reports:
"The honesty professor has been officially canned for dishonesty while conducting studies on [wait for it!] ... dishonesty. ... So now we have an ethics expert embroiled in a legal battle over whether she cooked the academic books — you really can't make this stuff up. ... Anyways, word on the street is that Harvard is looking for a new ethics professor! Only requirement: Be Ethical."
Publisher Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine tweeted it this way:
Harvard behavioral scientist Francesca Gino, who was paid $1 million a year to study honesty and ethical behavior, was accused of manipulating observations to better support her conclusions. Now lost tenure. Do they still teach irony at Harvard?
The accusations ranged from data falsification to plagiarized passages in some of her high-profile publications.
Ironically (errr, unironically), Professor Gino actually produced a video short several years ago entitled "Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life."
Yep, you really CAN'T make this stuff up!
With instructional videos on the benefits of breaking the rules, is it any wonder this "ethics" and "honesy" professor would find herself on the wrong side of, well, ethics and hoesty?
Hypocrisy is the sworn enemy of the frutiful Christian life. We love to put our best face forward, virtue signalling our ethical and honest Christian walk and lifestyle, all while self-justifying our bending of the rules, a little here, a little there, until finally, our sins are found out. "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known" (Luke 12:2, ESV).
In the end, it's hard to live a lie. Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy.
"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:5, ESV).
"You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’" (Matthew 15:7-9, ESV).
"Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people" (2 Timothy 3:5, ESV).
If Christianity Is True, Why Do Christians Behave So Badly?
Apologist and blogger Joel Furches, in an article entitled "If Christianity Is True, Why Do Christians Behave So Badly?" seeks to correct the illogic of such questions. At the root, he suggests, is the anti-Christian bias which tries to inexorably tie the behavior of the Christian with the validity of the faith.
"If it could be shown, then, that Christian behavior is overwhelmingly reprehensible, and that Christians get away with acting this way while claiming to be followers of God, it is only reasonable that people see this as evidence against the truth of Christianity, and of the Christian God."
He goes on to cite the anti-Christians' favorite examples used to disprove the "truth" of the Christian faith: the Crusades, the Inquisition, the cruelty of John Calvin, and the bigotry of Martin Luther.
The truth of Christianity does not stand or fall on who believes it, their motivations for believing it, or their personal behaviors. Either Christianity is true or it isn’t. That certain people embrace Christianity and then behave in a despicable manor does not somehow prove that Christianity is untrue. This same person doubtlessly holds a number of other beliefs that are in fact true. They probably believe that the earth is round, that exercise is good for the body, that rain comes from clouds, and that when they strike another person, it will hurt that person. These things do not somehow become untrue if the person believing them behaves badly.
"Christianity," he concludes, "stands or falls on its own merits. If Christianity is true, those who believe it will be held accountable for how they have represented those beliefs to others. If it is untrue, their behaviors have not made it untrue."
"Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the TRUTH, and the life ..." (John 14:6).