Hypocrisy or Authenticity?

Erik Thoennes, professor at Biola University and elder at Grace Evangelical Free Church in La Mirada, California, sees the authenticity trend in the undergrads he teaches. At the beginning of each class he asks his students to write down two things they love and two things they hate.

Consistently, one of the things they say they hate is “fake people.” But the Christian life involves a whole lot of “fakin’ it” on the path to becoming more like Christ, Thoennes says. “There’s this idea that to live out of conformity with how I feel is hypocrisy; but that’s a wrong definition of…