When Holiness Becomes a Performance
There is something in the air right now that I find difficult to name, but even harder to ignore.
It shows up in moments that, on the surface, seem unquestionably good—public displays of devotion, renewed interest in Scripture, visible enthusiasm for faith. Recently, for example, many have celebrated high-profile participation in Bible reading initiatives, including figures like Donald Trump. And to be clear, reading Scripture is a good thing. It always has been.
But I find myself unsettled.
Not because the Bible is being read—but because of what we are beginning to treat as evidence of holiness.
There is a subtle shift taking place, one that is easy to miss if we are not paying attention. It is the shift from faithfulness as lived obedience to faithfulness as visible performance. And the more I see it, the more it troubles me.
The Temptation of Visibility
Christianity has always had to wrestle with the temptation to perform itself.
Jesus names it directly. He warns against praying in order to be seen, fasting in order to be admired, giving in order to be praised. These are not condemnations of prayer, fasting, or generosity—but of something more insidious: the desire to appear righteous rather than to be transformed.
The danger is not the act itself. The danger is what the act becomes when it is severed from the life it is meant to express.
And that is what feels present in this moment.
When public acts of devotion—Bible reading, religious language, symbolic gestures—are elevated as primary indicators of faithfulness, they can begin to function as substitutes for the harder, quieter, less visible work of love.
Care for the poor.
Presence with the sick.
Attention to the elderly.
Solidarity with those who have nothing to offer in return.
These are not as visible. They do not trend. They do not produce the same kind of cultural affirmation.
But they are, according to the witness of Scripture, the very place where holiness is made real.
The Substitution We Don’t Notice
What unsettles me most is how easily we accept the substitution.
We begin to treat symbolic devotion as if it carries the full weight of discipleship. We celebrate the visible act without asking whether it corresponds to a life shaped by mercy, justice, and love of neighbor.
And in doing so, we risk forming a version of Christianity that is content with display.
A Christianity that knows how to signal its commitments, but not necessarily how to embody them.
A Christianity where the metric of holiness becomes: Was it seen? Was it shared? Was it affirmed?
Rather than: Was the hungry fed? Was the sick visited? Was the lonely known?
This is not a new problem. The prophets spoke against it. Jesus confronted it. The church has struggled with it in every generation.
But it feels particularly acute right now, perhaps because our cultural environment amplifies visibility as a form of value. What is seen is what counts. What is public is what matters.
And so it becomes increasingly difficult to tell the difference between witness and performance.
The Quiet Shape of Holiness
The Christian tradition, at its best, has always resisted this collapse.
Holiness is not primarily something that can be staged. It is not reducible to moments of public devotion, however sincere those moments may be.
Holiness is formed in the hidden places.
It is worked out in the ordinary rhythms of life—in patience, in sacrifice, in acts of love that will never be recognized. It is revealed not in how convincingly we can present ourselves as faithful, but in how deeply we are conformed to the life of Christ.
And that life, if we take it seriously, moves relentlessly toward those who are overlooked.
The poor.
The sick.
The elderly.
The forgotten.
Not as an optional add-on to spiritual life, but as its very center.
A Question Worth Asking
So perhaps the discomfort many of us feel is not cynicism. Perhaps it is a kind of theological instinct—a recognition that something essential is being misplaced.
Not rejected outright, but displaced.
And so the question lingers:
What are we forming ourselves to recognize as holiness?
If the answer is primarily found in what can be seen, shared, and celebrated, then we should not be surprised when Christianity begins to look more like a performance than a way of life.
But if holiness is what Scripture insists it is—love of God expressed in love of neighbor—then no amount of visible devotion can stand in for the work of mercy.
The Bible can be read publicly, loudly, and often.
But it must also be lived.
And that part, more often than not, happens where no one is watching.