Almost everybody knows someone who refuses to become a Christian because, he says, “There are too many hypocrites in the church.” Frankly, there are some. Does that observation qualify as a new revelation? Hardly. Jesus denounced some of the leading scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites in Matthew 23. Is it any wonder that some who are respected as Christian “leaders” today could be classified the same way?
In Christianity, we find those like Max Lucado, who grew up being taught the truth but departed from it a long time ago. The same could be said of Rubel Shelly and others. They all know the truth, but they are ignoring it and teaching otherwise because error is more popular. Paul warned that some brethren, who had itching ears, would heap to themselves teachers who would say what they wanted to hear (2 Tim. 4:1-5). No one wants to hear that their sins have condemned them and that they need to repent; it is much more enjoyable to hear that everything is fine and that God just wants everyone to be happy.
On May 10, 2015, the Orlando Sentinel published an interesting article: “Monk Targets Buddhism’s Underbelly.” The story is about a Buddhist monk in Thailand, whose name is, “Phra Issara.” He was being accompanied by bodyguards in public, and he had received bomb threats. His temple was attacked by gunfire last year, and he has also received kidnapping threats. What has provoked all this hostility? Essentially, the reason is that he is trying to rid their religious system of hypocrites (A10). Monks have always been revered in Thailand (which is 95% Buddhist), but many among the 300,000 of them have begun to use their religious system to make money.
Wow! Who would have thought of that—making money off of religion? What have these monks been doing—reading the history of the Catholic Church and its sale of indulgences and relics? Picture Mr. Haney from Green Acres saying, “Mister Douglas, this is a genuine (gen you wine) piece of the very cross on which Jesus was crucified. And it could be yours for only $400.” Or picture the televangelists who promise miracles and cures if you will just send them some “seed” money. While these things are obviously fraudulent, many buy right into it—literally.
Some Buddhist monks are catching on. They have refused to be transparent in their financial dealing; one was caught and forced to return about $30,000,000 that he had embezzled. Thailand’s 38,000 temples rely on donations to function. They receive annually between $3 and 3.6 billion dollars, which averages out to about $80,000 per temple per year. Some of the monks have turned greedy and don’t want to give an honest accounting of how much money they receive.
These negatives (stealing and violence) are not the religion’s fault. Buddhism does not endorse greed (by which some monks seem to be possessed) any more than Christianity does. How many hucksters are out there fleecing people in the name of Jesus? Leaders are susceptible to sin no matter what religion or what denomination they are. Of course, atheists must be excluded. Since they have no objective moral principles to adhere to, they have nothing to violate. Buddhists do, however, and some of their sins were listed:
There have been monks with girlfriends (and boyfriends), drunk monks crashing cars, monks pocketing wads of cash meant for funerals or playing the stock market. And that’s not even mentioning the monks on meth….
The government may be involved in the moral cleanup underway. (Fortunately, there is seldom any hypocrisy in politics.) Last year a military junta took over the country from a democratically elected prime minister, named Yingluck Shinawatra (no relationship to Frank). Yingluck is out of luck because he was “a polarizing figure.” Issara supported the overthrow. The junta has used “ever more dictatorial powers to crack down on opposition politicians, human right activists and the media.” That doesn’t sound good. Issara is said to be a good friend of the junta leader. Since they were reforming the government, Issara thinks the corruption in Buddhism ought to be purged, also.
This monk must be an optimist. He believes the worldliness infesting Buddhism can be fixed. He said:
If I can let the people know about the problems in the clergy that have been piling up for a long time and I find solutions, I’m glad to do this even if I die in the process.
His sentiments are noble, but one authority on Thai Buddhism does not think he will be successful. Commenting on the corruption, Sulak Sivaraksa said:
The fundamental teachings of the Buddha are that we should be transforming greed into generosity and hatred into loving kindness, but the new religions in this country are consumerism and capitalism.
Unfortunately, many Thai men are becoming monks for the benefits, such as a free university education. Any time there is something to gain from religion, it will attract people. How many become preachers because they love Jesus and love the souls of men? And how many become preachers because now they can earn a pretty good amount of money doing so? Has the motive for preaching changed since Acts 20:20, 27?
Sulak said that Thailand has lacked proper moral leadership; therefore misconduct went unpunished. A senior official at the Mahamakut Buddhist University, Anil Sakya, commented on the new reforms:
I think this is just a human problem. We are living in society and sometimes in societies things go wrong. Every country, every religion has good and bad people. Look at Christianity and all the bad Catholic fathers, look at the bad people in Islam.
Another commented similarly about the hypocritical religious figures in Thailand, saying, “Those people are not real monks, they’re just people wearing monk’s robes.” Undoubtedly, these observations are correct. Many are not genuine Christians, either; they just speak the lingo. However, the Buddhist solution to the problem is not accurate. Sulak said:
In Buddhism, we believe things will die and will be reborn. So in the future, maybe we will have fewer monks but better monks.
If that were the case, why hasn’t it happened in several thousand years? One would think that all the evil people who died in the flood a few thousand years ago would have spiritually evolved enough by now that there would be no evil left. But the world is actually regressing to the point of callous disregard for human life that existed then (Gen. 6:11).
The fact is that “it is appointed unto man to die once, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). Nobody is continually reborn until he gets it right. This life is all we have, and we need to perfect ourselves now by, first of all, becoming Christians so that His blood can (in baptism) wash us, sanctify us, and justify us. Then we must go on to perfection (Matt. 5:48; Heb. 6:4-6; Gal. 5:22-23, 2 Peter 1:5-11). We must be converted from the inside out and always approach God in spirit and in truth. Only then can we have confidence in salvation and avoid the snare of hypocrisy.