“When people become Christians, they don’t at the same moment become nice. This always comes as a something of a surprise. Conversion to Christ and his ways doesn’t automatically furnish a person with impeccable manners and suitable morals.” 1 Corinthians – The Message.
Can we talk openly? Duh! This makes me want to literally take out my baseball bat that has “DOH!” stamped along its thicker portion. (Now do you really believe I have a bat to beat people? If so you are living in my own head and perhaps should get some serious help too, lol!) I grew up with two very aggressive brothers so forgive my immediate reference to violence….let’s just say it was “survival of the fittest”, but in my defense it was literally “survival of the quickest”. I know all you “sisters” will relate!
Back to the point though…whatever gave anyone reason to think a person could change overnight? Even Paul who was significantly touched by Jesus’ own hand had to be led by others until his sight was restored.
Let me preface this statement by saying that I am not christian so maybe i can provide an outside perspective. I don’t think that most people truly believe that becoming christian makes them automatically “nice”, or “trustworthy”, or “honest” or whatever grab bag of adjectives you care to use. My impression though, is that more often than not, newly converted christians tend to have an air of righteousness that can try the patience of others, especially those who knew them from before their lifestyle change. Its probably not something a person notices that they are doing but is very noticeable by someone who is non-religious. Its been my experience that someone who has been devout for some time is not usually like this. Perhaps they have come to terms with long standing issues in their life that force them to overcompensate and overjustify, or maybe they just understand that everyone has their own path and it’s in bad taste to flaunt their religion. Commonly I don’t even know these kinds of people are devout – my step-father was a good example of this. Its common psychology that people just want to belong to something bigger than themselves, and people typically look for that magic pill that gets them the greatest reward with the least amount of effort so embracing religion is a natural tool in this endeavor. Its compelling to want to bring other people into your line of thinking so that you can feel like you made the right choice yourself, so with all this in mind maybe its not so simplistic as it seems. Just my $.02.