The Problem of Performative Kindness

 To strive to be "good" for God, in order to prove oneself worthy of salvation, is to engage in a performative act of kindness. 

Performative acts of kindness are not genuine acts of kindness, because they are motivated less by a selfless desire to help someone, and more out of a need for approval for helping someone in need. 

This is like only helping someone if there is someone around to film it so you can put it on your social media feed in an attempt to attract "likes" and followers. So to, to believe that God is watching our actions to determine we are worthy of salvation, which is like a boss watching our actions to determine whether we should be promoted or fired or a dictator determining whether we should be left alone or imprisoned for thinking the "wrong ideas," is not only to rely on such a perspective to motivate us into "right" or moral behavior, it is to assume that without such motivation, people's natural tendency is to act like rapists and serial killers. Such an 'assumption' is based not on a "love" of God, but a fear of others.

Christianity, as such, is a religion that uses acts of kindness exercised by Christians as evidence of how Christianity makes people more altruistic.  But on the one hand, Christians also disclaim all of the horrible actions performed and justified in the name of Christianity as simply being mere mistakes, while on the other hand, Christians discredit all of the altruistic acts of other religions and atheists as being either insignificant, or largely self-serving (how ironic).

The problem is that people conditioned to equate actions with a group or "church" or community approval are highly susceptible to equating actions that are approved of by a community or church as being "moral," even when the whole community is burning witches and crucifying heretics. Then, in retrospect, later group members simply "forgive" the actions of previous Christians as simply proof that we are all flawed and thus need Christianity. 

This, of course, is circular logic masquerading as "divine revelation," which is like the man behind the curtain pretending to be the Wizard of Oz.  

Whenever we are engaging in an action that is dependent upon a reward or approval from a God or a group, we are engaging in performative art masquerading as altruism. 

Between acts of kindness that are engaged in without expectation of reward or approval and acts of kindness that are in anyway related to or connected with approval of worthiness, the former is morally superior, even as a belief in the Christian brand of God holds up the latter as the moral ideal.