• Another highly talented young minister in our area slipped into moral failure and lost his minister’s license this week. I suppose I should be shockproof to the news by now, yet I never find myself ready to hear another example.

• An energetic student in a class I teach at a Christian university recently wrote me a note confessing her utter despair at her inability as a Christian to control her drinking problem.

• A Christian friend and I ran to the store to pick up some folding chairs for our church. As we secured the chairs in his truck, I noticed the employees had loaded too many. When I headed to report the error, my friend stopped me. “Keep quiet, and let’s go,” he said. “Their loss is the church’s gain.”

What do these stories have in common? In every case, Christians responded in ways that seem very unchristian. We expect our ministers to avoid temptations that lead to moral failure. We do not easily reconcile Christian discipline with alcoholism. We assume that Christians are honest and trustworthy whether anyone is watching or not. Yet all too often, in a thousand different combinations, stories like these surface in our churches, Christian universities, and Bible study groups. Admittedly, these are extreme cases. More common forms of the problem include voting for political candidates who oppose Christian values, watching television programs or movies that promote values or lifestyles contrary to Christian virtues, and performing questionable practices at school or in the workplace. Any time our daily choices do not align with our faith, we contribute to the problem.

If you’re like me, every time you hear about inconsistency between what a Christian says and what he or she does, you question how such a thing can occur. The answer often lies in the simple technique of compartmentalization, the separation of our personal world into two realms. In the sacred realm, we look, talk, and act like a Christian at church, at home, or in the company of Christian friends. In the secular realm, we look, talk, and act an entirely different way. What we say in our religious world does not always inform the way we act in the marketplace. It’s really a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” existence. That is, we tailor our conversation and conduct to the environment in which we find ourselves, much like a chameleon changes color to match its surroundings.

But Why?

Why do people compartmentalize? At least part of the answer involves society and the way it informs and affects us. None of us can totally avoid its influence unless we live as hermits. Some of the puzzle pieces of society’s influence include the following:

1. The urge to bring a consumer mentality to faith. Let’s face it: as consumers we have a great deal of choice at the supermarket and the shopping center. Merchants urge us to “have it [our] way.” Why not lay our religious beliefs and practices on the table, select the ones we like, adjust the ones we want to change, and discard the ones that cramp our style? Why not treat religious belief and action like a buffet where we customize our thought and practice to our own personal preferences?

2. The urge to build a wall in our thinking between what we say and what we do. This temptation carefully avoids the pitfalls of hypocrisy. The word hypocrite means “putting on a mask.” It comes from the ancient theater, where actors held up a smiling mask to indicate joy or a frowning mask to display sadness. Actors changed their masks on purpose; they knew what they were doing. Hypocrites do too. They have at least some awareness of their inconsistencies. With society’s temptation to compartmentalize, the left hand simply doesn’t think about what the right hand is doing. The wall between the compartments helps us function in two separate worlds simultaneously.

3. The urge to expose ourselves to the almost endless supply of information that comes at us from all over the world every day. We hear news reports from the far-flung corners of the world; we receive E-mail from people we’ve never met across the country or around the world. Satellite dishes and computer connections bring us more information than we could possibly assimilate into our thinking or adequately judge. We’re exposed to too much and at too fast a rate to digest it properly. What’s more, like gluttons at a feast, the more we hear, the more we hunger to hear. Information becomes addictive.

4. The urge to tolerate all beliefs and ideas. Society calls on us daily to remain open to a variety of points of view and avoid judging any of them. One belief system is just as valid as another, we’re told. Who has the authority to say your views are better than mine? We’re urged to leave the question open for discussion and not come to any quick conclusions. Add this urge to the last one, and you have an almost endless stream of ideas flowing into your head that bypasses any filtering system to sort the right from the wrong.

I visualize this compartmentalization problem like the chest of drawers in my bedroom. My clean laundry is folded in stacks of like items and placed in their respective drawers. Dress socks go in the top drawer; sports socks occupy the second drawer; T-shirts follow in the next drawer; underwear goes to the bottom drawer. In compartmentalization, we sort contradictory ideas and lifestyles into separate drawers. We cannot reconcile their inconsistency, but no problem—we just live out of one drawer at church or with our Christian friends and another drawer at work or school. As long as we keep the compartments neatly separated, we don’t even realize the problem.

What Can We Do?

Does being a citizen of today’s world doom us inevitably to compartmentalization? A thousand times no! Jesus prayed for His disciples to be in the world but not of it (John 17:6-24). Satan cannot outwit us in this battle as long as we apply Christian principles to the problem. Consider these steps:

1. Recognize what is taking place. Analyze your life regularly for compartments in your thinking and living. Compare Monday’s routine and vocabulary with Sunday’s. Look for inconsistencies between what you say you believe and the way you live.

2. Tear down the wall in your thinking between the secular and the sacred. Fight society’s urge to compartmentalize. The Hebrew people in biblical times did not even have a word in their language for the secular. For them, all of life was sacred and lived before God. They sought to be the same people behind closed doors that they were in public; their goal was to filter every word, thought, and action through scriptural values.

3. Pass judgment. That’s no longer politically correct, but it’s biblical. In Philippians 4:8 Paul gives us a list of criteria for filtering our thoughts. If what you see on television or in the marketplace is not true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy, refuse to allow it to become part of your life. Guard the flow of information into your mind. Choose to reject all that does not meet the biblical standard.

4. Live in the Word. The only way you can properly pass judgment on all that comes to you from your environment is to read the Bible regularly and inform your mind with God’s thoughts and values. My computer automatically gets on the Internet every Wednesday at noon, downloads the latest information regarding computer viruses, and checks itself for hidden problems. We must download information from God’s Word and check ourselves regularly for inconsistencies as well.

5. Remain accountable. The Christian life is not a solitary one; we need each other. Go to church regularly; participate in a Bible study fellowship; have a trusted Christian friend to whom you remain accountable. Talk about compartmentalization at church, in the home, and with your best friend. Ask other Christians what they think about questions for which you don’t have clear answers. Search the Scriptures together for God’s direction in these matters.

Avoid the Trap

Our world is filled with people who live inconsistent lives. We’ve come to expect it of our political leaders, media stars, and sports figures. One reason for these inconsistent lifestyles is compartmentalization. As Christians we have an obligation to God, our families, church friends, and the world to avoid the trap. We are called to be God’s light to our dark world. One of the best ways we can brightly reflect God’s light is to live a lifestyle that plainly demonstrates the influence of God at work within us—and to live it consistently.

Frank Moore is vice president for academic affairs and dean at MidAmerica Nazarene University.