Doing Business with Christians

I am with you here. The only people who have ever cheated me (so far as I know that i was cheated) have been so-called “Christians”. I sometimes wonder if folks think that if they put an Icthus on their business card or yellow pages ad that this gives them a free pass on business ethics.

How about you? Have you ever been burned by Christian’s (sic) in the business world?

Business world. Church world. Religious world. Social world. Work world. World world. Been burned by Christians in all those places. Probably burned a few Christians myself.

Not particularly, but then I wonder if the US is slightly different. I can’t imagine any disconnect between my theology and my interaction in the world. I may fail, but I expect my Christian worldview to affect all my dealings.

I was Reading Nancy Pearcey’s book Total Truth and she told of a Christian lawyer whose job entailed getting people out of contracts they no longer found useful. I may have mentioned this here before.

She mentioned the guy divided his life into business and church and didn’t perceive the disconnect.

But what struck me was that anyone could possibly think like that. That a person could have obviously mutually exclusive worldviews and apply 1 set of rules one day and a second another.

But perhaps it is more common?

Burned by Christians, oh yeah! I got several fairly expensive hits in that area. And both times the “secular” people who fixed the problems, did a far better job.

Forgive me for a slight tangent here but it’s sort of connected. When I first became a Christian my wife and I attended a fairly well know evangelical church. Part and parcel of the teaching was that Catholics were at best apostate, and at worst, part of the “mystery Babylon, anti-christ” religion, blah blah blah. As the years have passed, some of the most devoted, godly, and Christ loving people I have meet (and that includes in the business world) have been Catholics. And some of the people with the WORST integrity I have meet have been Christians from churches like the evangelical one mentioned above (the same ones who are the first to throw stones at others).

I know this is a gross generalization but Michael asked about personal experiences so…

Peace.

Damian

I forget which Christian blog it was, but I remember just a ton of replies on the topic of why Christians are such bad tippers. Evidently waitstaff absolutely hate to work Sundays after services.

In general, yeah, I tend to avoid anyone wearing their religion on their sleeve as a marketing ploy. It’s like saying “trust me” — why does someone start off worried they need to convince me they’re ethical? Hmmm.

So, jumping from the frying pan into the fire, how does a Christian confront the poor business ethics of his fellow Christians? Simply quit using them or do we challenge them to be better ambassadors for Christ? I suggest if we are not willing to confront fellow Christians it’s like telling our bellies–you need a diet–but allowing our mouths and tastebuds to stay uninvolved.

Most of the victims of the recent MASSIVE Ponzi scheme run by Stanford Financial Group were evangelical Christians, and the Ponzi scheme’s founder was an active evangelical Christian.

Many of the Ponzi schemes around the Caribbean have preyed on people’s Christian affiliations.

The reason is simple. People who wear their “Christian” identity prominently and loudly, are wearing it specifically because of what that identity says about them. They are wearing it specifically to influence and manipulate others. And more importantly, people who choose to trust a business partner based on whether that partner professes to be a Christian, are being lazy and avoiding the hard work of judging the person’s character.

Scriptures *never* said, “by their profession of creed you shall know them”. Anyone who judges a business partner by his being a “Christian”, is an idolatrous fool who deserves to be fleeced. Scriptures demand Christians, more than anyone else, to be discerning about the character of those we engage with.

In fact, the very question “Are Christian businessmen more or less trustworthy than Non-Christian businessmen?”, frames the question in a way so as to encourage idolatry. One should *never* make judgments about a person based on such labels, but instead judge based on fruits (and by “fruits”, we mean things that reveal a person’s character, not stupid professions of creed, or absence of professions of creed).

I avoid them.

Can’t think of any situation where I got burned though. Just my standard suspicion/paranoia.

Can’t say too much though, the government’s secret thought police may be listening in.

Michael –

What I have sensed in recent years is the ever-increasing popularity of Christians pointing out the lack of good business service from other Christians, even to the point of saying they would rather do business with non-Christians.

I don’t say this cynically towards you or others who would state such. I just recognise it. And sometimes I have pondered the same thoughts. But in the end, I guess I will do ‘business’ with whomever will provide the better service, Christian or non-Christian (as long as that business is not the church, since church is not about business…anyways…). 🙂

But to say we would rather do business with non-Christians is probably not the sensible answer for all situations, as I’m sure you know. Sticking with non-Christians will also leave us burned. It’s just bound to happen in a fallen world. Thus, we need the wisdom and grace in each situation.

I have a recording studio. Right now Christians owe me money that I don’t ever expect to collect.

Before we had our own studio, we recorded an album in a studio in LA that had a lot of Christian clients, including some biggies like Word Records. The studio owner said he had been burned for $80K by Christians, and this was back in ’92, so that would be what, $140K today? (Word was not one of the deadbeats)

My wife used to work in a music store and Christians would come in and expect a better deal on equipment or even to have equipment given to them because “it’s for the Lord, brother.” Over time, it had a pretty negative impact on the store owner, who was not a believer.

Joshua writes

People who wear their “Christian” identity prominently and loudly, are wearing it specifically because of what that identity says about them. They are wearing it specifically to influence and manipulate others.

Thats pretty profound, if a bit cynical. Maybe they wear it because they’re excited about their new life. When I first took my faith seriously, I had to avoid Christian bookstores, because I’d go broke, wanting every symbol in the store so I could shine brightly, like a city on a hill. So sometimes it is innocent, but your comment has some deep truth in it.

My experience, as a professional photographer and journalist by profession, was getting presumed upon by too many of my Christian peers into doing ‘free’ wedding photography, family reunions, graduations and charitable brochures. Free for them, but costly to me, as I had travel costs that were not reimbursed, film and processing costs, and of course the time involved away from my paying jobs. And some of these people actually expected expensive prints and wedding albums at no cost to them! Back in those days, I had just left my newspaper job and was a struggling free lance photographer, trying to establish my own business, and could barely afford to eat.

What sewed it for me for ever doing any more free photography or writing projects for Christians was a calendar project one of the women in my church came up with to raise money for missions. I had done years of free PR work to promote her women’s ministry already. I told them from the get-go I didn’t think the calendar had much of a chance of being professionally published because it was such a competitive market, and the subject of it was not much in demand. However, since they were unwilling to put up the thousands of dollars to self-publish, after spending several days on site doing the photos, after turning down a paying assignment, I promised to use my contacts to see if we could get one of the publishing houses interested in publishing it, and spent a lot of my own money trying to market it to the handful of calendar publishing houses, unsuccessfully.

This woman, who was unhappy when not one of them was interested, because the subject they had chosen didn’t have broad enough appeal, criticized me roundly for not trying, and never spoke to me again. She tried to ruin my professional reputation by discussing all this to everyone who would listen. She would not accept the realities of the publishing world, but thought I personally failed her., and made her ‘look bad’ in the eyes of the church because the project was unsuccessful. Five years later I am still hearing about her caustic remarks from people I worked with.

So, like someone else above, whenever anyone approaches me for a ‘charitable church” or as a personal favor to one of my Christian peers, project, I politely decline. Not because I don’t want to, but because I know how some Christians act: they want everything for nothing. And the thing is sometimes they can better afford to put up the time and money than the person whom they are expecting to donate theirs!

I forgot about the “tipping” thing. My daughter was a waitress for a number of years, and she, too, would confirm that Christians were the worst tippers. They dreaded the “Sunday after-church” crowd.” It meant lots of work, lots of complaints, lots of demands, lots of tables kept filled by overlong eaters and talkers and messy kids, and … very little in tips to show for it.

So in reply to your question about being burned by Christians in the business world, since eating out is a business transaction, I think nearly every waiter or waitress in America would answer with a hearty “Amen!” or “Hell, yes!”

(FWIW, our daughter taught us to tip 20% (we used to tip 15%), and I’ll often tip more.)

In my hometown “Christian” business owners are notoriously unreliable, so much so that I met an assistant pastor of a large church in the area who refuses to have any dealings with businesses and service providers who advertise themselves as Christian. In our area, unbelievers have generally shown themselves to be better at keeping a contract.

I forgot about the major car repair gone really bad by a man who advertised himself at church as a “Christian mechanic” to drum up some business. He gave out cards to our entire church, which gave a 20% discount on auto repair, and a free oil change.

We used him several times until we went to get the transmission fluid and others checked. We came back for the car and it wouldn’t go in gear. He (a certified Honda mechanic) messed up the transmission so badly that he told us it would take $2,000 to replace. We asked him to make it good, since it was working fine before we brought in for a general fluids checkup, and he refused. So we went to another mechanic and it still cost us $1700. He felt it had been deliberately damaged, but of course we couldn’t prove it.

The Christian mechanic later claimed it was one of the other mechanics who would do serious damage to the cars deliberately, so that they would have more work. He said he had fired him, but still wouldn’t stand behind his own guarantee. A couple of other folks we know got burned too, and they won’t use him any longer either.

Yet, he still advertises himself around town as a “Christian” mechanic.

My wife and I always make sure to tip really big when we eat out on Sunday. I guess the wait staff thinks we’re not Christians, but I guess I can live with that considering…

I’ve heard plenty of stories. I can’t recall personally being burned by another believer. I have a friend from church who I call for my HVAC needs. My church has a lot of skilled professionals with good reputations.

I like to listen to Chuck Missler. He’s mentioned several times an attorney friend of his who said every time a client comes in and says “Oh, great, I’m so glad to find a Christian lawyer” it means he won’t get paid. He knows other professionals who tend to not display their faith for the same reason. He knows doctors who say that all of the unpaid bills in their cabinets are from the “born again Christians.” I know that’s all anecdotal but I have no reason to doubt it.

Having come to Christ from Christian Science, I’m familiar with the Gnostic dualism one has to live under to make an unworkable belief system, well, work. I often think other Christians are living under some kind of Gnosticism; keeping the spiritual and the physical separate. When I come across an apperrant disconnect between my understanding of my faith and the world, I try to stop and analyze it. Am I living under a bad assumption? Do I not properly understand the Bible or the world? I’m not sure that other believers stop to do that analysis and end up living in some kind of intellectual dualism, which leads to praising the Lord, then going out to overwork and underpay a poor waitress who probably needs a display of mercy and grace instead.

Yep, one of my biggest financial burns was by a Christian. And I agree with tipping at least 20% and just generally being more pleasant. It seems to me (I speak in generalities) that many Christians have an unwarranted sense of entitlement, which just ends up looking ugly. I dunno. Maybe its just me.

I have a slightly different question and I really would like to get everyone’s thoughts on it. What about selling items within church buildings? Like merchandise? Is that ok? Or is it kind of doing what the Jews were doing in the temple of Jesus’ day?

James,

I suspect that if we don’t make it a den of thieves, selling things is permissible. (It might not be wise… Or the wisdom might depend on what we’re selling, and how.)

In other words, I don’t understand why Jesus would call the temple a den of thieves, unless there was dishonesty happening.

When you said “…I have found that the world often does things better than the church. At least they take many things more seriously and don’t think that there is an assumed liberty of tolerance.” I think you hit the nail on the head.

Further, in an idealistic, way we often would like fellow believers to be competent secularly, when there is no reason that they should be just because they are believers.

Combine the entitlement to cutting them some slack and a lack of due diligence in evaluating competence in the requirement of the actual job (unrelated to their beliefs), and you have a recipe for problems. And don’t get me wrong – I have been victim to this syndrome too.

The desire to fellowship with believers in business is laudable. However, we must also evaluate, ignoring the fact that they are believers, their ability to do the job, as a separate and determining issue.

Re: comment #17

James:

Having thrown the “altar” out of the church when the Eucharist became a memorial instead of a sacrifice or a re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice, it would IMO be stretching things to equate the “church building” (and even the so-called “sanctuary”) with the Temple; the church building is more akin in substance and style to a synagogue (and in some instances to a college lecture hall or a performance auditorium or theater) than a Temple. So I think the analogy of Temple moneychangers with selling things at “church” is invalid.

Our burns by Christians have been few, but we had one big one. We sold our townhouse in the DC suburbs in 1988; the market was so hot we had 2 ppl bidding on our house. We took the lesser of the 2 bids because that bidder was a Christian who had a ministry to runaways. He then backed out for trivial reasons. Our Christian realtor (hahahaha) encouraged us to return the earnest money. The the person who lost the bidding resubmitted a lower offer of course, which we accepted. Oh well, water under the bridge.
I had an office co-worker who said he wouldn’t have anything to do with Chrisitianity because he had been burned by a Christian in the marketplace. I wonder if such events genuinely keep folks from accepting Christ or whether they are just excuses to hang on to their hard hearts.

I suspect Jews and Catholics and Muslims, etc., could say the same about fellow co-religionists.

I think if we are going to wear the Christian ‘badge’ in our dealings in the marketplace in order to attract Christian business, then we are no better than the money-changers in the Temple whom Jesus decried, if we are doing a slip-shod job, or cheating folks.

It’s still dishonest.

I’m just not sure the correlation is working here. Christian = bad business dealer.

I think I could give an example of just about every experience listed above with non-Christians, or I suppose they were non-Christians. I am not on either ‘side’ here, I just remind us that we live in a fallen world. So I can point to tons of non-Christians owing money, not tipping, wanting better or free deals from those they know, etc.

I think the lesson is not that Christ’s followers are the worst business dealers, for I think it all evens out across the board. Rather, the challenge is that we, as His followers, should be faithful and have integrity in business.

Rgarding money and church stuff – Our church runs a community concert series as a way to introduce folks to our presence in the community. We bring in acts (not necessarily Christian, but not objectionable) whom we pay as appropriate. So, we decided to sell tickets, for two primary reasons:
1) People don’t take it seriously if it’s free
2) We hope it becomes self-supporting (we hope to break even)

For all the concerts so far we’ve sold tickets at $5 per person. We encourage our people to bring friends who are not involved in a church. It’s been a good thing so far, but we had one woman (a church member) let us know she will not attend or otherwise support the concerts because she feels it is inappropriate for the church to charge for anything. But we’ve had no other objections.

A Jew, Bernie Madoff, just burned more people than all the “burnings” of Xians by Xians (and/or by anyone else) combined in the last 100 years!

I think Bernie’s actions “cover a multitude of [other persons’] sins.” 😀

I think Scott made a good point. It’s not that Christian=bad business, but it sure does stand out more when one of us fails to hold up our end of a business transaction.

I remember my wife’s grandfather once telling me that when he sold his house, it was a Christian who bought it. He said “Don’t ever do business with these people!” I didn’t bring up that I am one. I’m unsure the actual state of his heart, but I know he did attend a church regularly, so he could have been referring to somebody who wears his Christianity loudly. In any case, he said that on signing the contract, the person said he’d be patient with the move out, then turned around and pushed them out of the house as fast as possible. Unfortunately, he’s passed along so I can’t go back and check anything I remember him telling me.

EricW, while I was still apostate, I was a server in a fine dinning establishment and would have to wait on the “church people” on Sunday afternoon…we all would take turns because they were so miserable to wait on…run up fairly large bills ( over $100) and leave literally $3.50 (I’m not kidding!). But you know, I’m not the “Judge”. Something that we talked about where I work now (manufacturing) that can be directly applied to the Kingdom of God is…You make sure you are following the rules and don’t worry about what everyone else is doing…this from my supervisor…sounds a lot like Luke 6:41-42.

Scott L,

“Rather, the challenge is that we, as His followers, should be faithful and have integrity in business.”

Well said. My point exactly. If we are advertising our business as Christian, then we have an obligation to Christ first, to deal with His character and His integrity. The rest of the world can be expected to do what they do, one way or another. We Christians, however, should be representing more than our own interests.

Sadly however, a lot of ‘Christian’ business people forget that.

Thanks Eric, that was really insightful. I guess I never thought about it that way.

Oh yeah…

Here’s a, perhaps interesting, tidbit. When I first moved to the US, Dallas more specifically, I was surprised by all the “Christian” businesses. So when I finally decided to stay here and a buy a house.. oh my… lots of surprises. Culture shock…

A summary of experiences ?

1) I got better offers and more honest advice on several things that were completely foreign to me, like A/C systems and swimming pools, from “Non-Christian” than from “Christian” companies or vendors
2) When I needed the fence replaced and specifically only took bids from “Christian” vendors, the guys that actually did the job made several mistakes. Some of which never got corrected

On the other hand
3) My A/C and appliance guy is a very dear Christian friend
4) My garage door repair guy is a solid Christian

Conclusion ? You find as many good and reputable Christian business men as non-Christian. Personally however I don’t even look at the card anymore. There’s too many business men out there, be they independents or be they management in large corporations, who only have the moniker “Christian” because it is culturally expected. But when you ask about their faith or what specifically makes their business Christian, more often than not their answers fall short. There’s business people who call themselves “Christian” but organize corporate outings or lunches at Hooters or even more “revealing” places. Makes me doubt their faith as much as a dishonest self-employed repair man. Both cases shed a very bad light on Christianity and makes it only more difficult to witness to unbelievers. We’re hurting ourselves.

Separation of Church and State (read business) anyone ??

In Him
Mick

I wonder how much of the “burning” comes from the fact that when someone else professes Christianity, we immediately think “he’s a brother” and let our defenses down. Actions that would make us suspicious in unbelievers get a pass for the professing christian-and that person ends up screwing us over because we ignored the signs.

I know my mother is guilty of this. As soon as someone uses the word “christian” she trusts them implicitly, even if they have done nothing to earn that trust, and indeed she has been burned by these people. Yet we are told to test all things.

Joshua Allen made a good point in that unscrupulous people use that “immediate in” in order to dupe others and it’s unfortunate that we are such easy targets.

I also think some bitterness of Christian betrayal stems at least partly from that. We expect because the word “christian” is used that these people are automatically reputable, and it hurts far more when they prove not to be. We give them trust we wouldn’t give to unbelievers. We think they should be, well, christian. But they are sinners too.

Tangentially, I have no idea what tipping has to do with being a Christian. People who don’t tip are screwing other people over? Really?? I will say it amazes me that Americans will often give tips for even the worst service. Around here you only get a tip if you give good service. That said, in Canada employers are not allowed to get away with having the customer pay their staff’s wages for them, so we tend not to think tipping is a duty. Does this make Canadians unchristian? This seems silly to me.

As an attorney, I have found that if any of my fellow Christians come seeking legal advice or even legal work (documents, etc), I just do it for free if at all possible. The reason is that early on a number of my church acquaintances seemed surprised and even offended when I sent them a bill. And they tend to be the worst payers anyway.

What’s worse is that, even now, when I do the work for free, my fellow Christians tend to be the most insistent about making their work a priority and are the most likely to complain.

Very odd, but after 18 years in this business, and dozens of Christian clients, I have gotten used to it.

Michael L remarked,

“We’re hurting ourselves.”

Agreed.

But, are we not also hurting God’s reputation among others? Not that God needs to defend Himself, just saying that in the eyes of others we Christians are supposed to be contending for the faith. It would seem to me that unethical business practices would indicate just the opposite.

Hey, Michael L (#31) – Welcome to the Big D! (We’ve been here since 1990.)

As a Dallasite, see my comments #88 and #89 in the Why I am not Charismatic Part 8 thread:

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/04/why-i-am-not-charismatic-part-8-i-am-a-de-facto-cessationist/#more-2132

re: Dallasite Julie Lyons’ new book about her church/Christian experiences in Dallas. It’s a great read!

On the flip side there are reputable business owners who are Christians, who really represent. Shortly after I moved to Dallas last year, I was referred to an auto mechanic (notorious for being the worst kinds of business scoundrels) through DTS. I have taken my car to him several times. He is fair, honest and does a great job.

I’m sure a lot of Christians have a story similar to yours. Lisa, and rightfully so.

My point is that if we are to advertise ourselves as giving extra special service, vis a vis being Christians, (as opposed to those business people who are not), then we darn well better be prepared to prove it by our superior actions and service to everyone, and not just to our Christian brothers and sisters.

If we can’t prove it, then we’d best get out of advertising ourselves as giving better service or a better product simply by virtue of the name we advertise under.

I have never been burned by a Christian business person because I have never done business with one. I stay away from the confusion this introduces. Since I am a pastor I don’t want to get in a row with someone who is a professing Christian about the quality or cost of their work. I want to do business with someone who I can negotiate fairly with if the work is done poorly without having to have my love for Jesus brought up in the conversation. My other corollary is that I do not accept gifts from congregants – using their vacation homes, borrowing their cars, etc. I just do my best to keep other Christians out of my finances and me out of theirs. Has worked well.

I have been schemed by both Christians and non-Christians in the business world. When someone boasts their Christianity in a business setting I am also a little leary (much like mixing gasoline with kerosene or diesel). However, I think its best to let actions speak before making rash decisions.

In some instances negativity could be attributed to another supressed issue or circumstance. I am not going to go too much into detail but one of the biz owners I worked for stated he did all business handlings with the Bible as a guide. Unfortunately he mis-interpreted many things, for example at the end of the week he neglected to pay me my wages, so I left. (I was hoping I would have been paid daily as in the Bible, LOL just kidding). I don’t care to divulge all the things that took place but I only manage to put up with it for about a week.

I also had another Christian employer that used the word “GD” and “Christ” (negative manner) so many times, I just couldn’t understand why he went to the trouble to push Christianity upon me, what he didn’t know was that I was a Christian. I just didn’t want to be associated with his view of the term is all.

A good portion of the blame lies with the churches that don’t teach their people better than this. Popular books that teach we are recipients of ‘divine favor’ in regard to the mundane details of life don’t help. A return to the doctrine of vocation and the two kingdoms could really help us in this respect.

@Dave Z: You’re totally right that new believers are very enthusiastic and want to drink deeply of anything related to Christianity that they can find. And making decisions based on the *label* is certainly better than randomly guessing. So I didn’t really mean to imply that it’s always idolatrous to choose a business, friend, or event based on it’s “Christian” affiliation.

And we certainly don’t want to scare new believers off by quoting scriptures about how many professed Christians will turn out to be heretics, and of whom the Lord will say “I know you not”. One of the appeals of Christianity is this sense of being part of a large, loving family and the brotherhood/sisterhood. So we shouldn’t discourage that.

I suppose this all just shows how we need to be extremely cautious so that we do not become a stumbling block to new believers, and also to pray that they grow in the wisdom and discernment with the smallest amount of trauma. I would even consider the possibility that we should be much more active about rebuking those of us in our communion who behave in a non-Christian manner in business, so that they do not become a stumbling block to new believers.

I stay away from people advertising their businesses with little fish on their card, or in their ad.

I’m looking for a ____________ (whatever), not a Christian ________ (whatever).

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I remodel bathrooms and spend quite a bit of time in people’s homes. Some of the worst, most hateful people are church go’ers. I have been treated much better overall by the heathen.

My kids both wait tables while they are in college. They both say that church go’ers are the worst tippers, hardest to please and the most ungracious.

Was it Ghandi who said, ” I like your Christ, but I dispise your Christians”?

Churches should teach us that we have a responsibility to show God’s love and omnipotence though His practical side as well. If we can’t do that, who are we kidding but ourselves?

Why advertise yourself as a ‘Christian’ business person if you aren’t willing to show there’s a big difference in the secular world’s view (i.e. survival of the fittest) and THE fittest way (vis a vis moral obligation to serve others), regardless of the reward, which is God’s way?

I’ve been burned a lot by Christians, both dedicated and not. I’ve decided not to do business with brothers anymore unless there’s some compelling reason to do so. I’ve been cheated, lied to, and stolen from too often. There are good Christian businesspeople and bad ones, but at least I don’t feel as let down when I have the excuse, “What do I expect from an unbeliever?” part to fall back on.

Boy this hit a note with me. We are a production company working on a high profile story and having gotten so screwed by this “Christian” family don’t even know where to start.

I used to have a policy of not doing work for lawyers but I’m now adding evangelicals to that list. It is to easy for them to justify them behavior all in the name of “God” kind of like a bigger problem with another faith in the world currently.

We are partnering with them on a Documentary- basically working for nothing, and the father, we come to fins out is slandering us by telling everyone we’re gay in a explicit and derogatory manner, whie in the same breath telling us of cheating on his wife, and saying it’s OK because that’s what men are meant to do.

We were almost done with the Documentary and then suddenly got a better offer so they have now turned around and demanded we give them everything (film and whatnot), so they can give it to this “new” production company. We were the second production company they did this too, and now there is a third.

Evangelicals rave against muslims and their fanaticism but frankly they are doing almost as much damage to our country as any Jihadist

Brett,

I too am no fan of many Evangelical Christians who use their Christianity to advance their personal and business goals…but…you are really stretching things when you compare them to jihadist Muslims.

Jihadist Muslims ARE actively engaged in trying to subdue the world by force.

I’ve read quite a few of the comments about people posing as devout Christians screwing people in the world. This to me, says “Hypocrite or Liar” and anything BUT Christian.
We can all tell a tree by it’s fruit.
If the fruit stinks, then it’s rotten.
If the fruit smells of the love and Grace of Christ, then it’s authentic.
Non Christians are not blind… and hypocrites fool no one but themselves.
It’s fairly easy to label ones self as to how a person wants the world to see them, but it’s a life long process to submit your entire being, self will, finances, daily time and love to sincerely submit to the will of GOD thru HIS Holy Spirit. To make ourselves empty vessels so GOD can fill us with HIS Holy Spirit.
I also have been ripped off more by “FAKES” that call themselves Christians but in reality are liars and imposters.
These are the people we are to pray for… those who abuse us and despitefully use us. These people are the future harvest for Christ… these sick people are the ones Jesus died for.
“For I haven’t come to save the healthy, but the sick”
GOD give us grace and patience so we hopefully are never seen as we see these people who imitate the children of the Living GOD.

Been burned by christians and christians only, stating that “I’d be getting the blessings from the lord”. Well, my business is not a business that will feed my family on blessings only.