In the tragic case of Pastor Ted Haggard, an ever-expanding
number of liberal writers and bloggers are cheerfully celebrating
the fall of this man.
But it seems to me that if one looks at the life and practice of
the great critic of hypocrites, Jesus of Nazareth, who is
recognized by most everyone, liberal and conservative alike, as a
paradigm of personal virtue, one does not find Jesus finding
satisfaction or joy in the failure of others. In fact, to find
comfort in another’s suffering, and then to brag about the
acquisition of that comfort in a public venue, seems far more
wicked than the initial hypocrisy.
Remember that for Jesus, hypocrisy was a vice found in the
hearts of those who thought they were spiritually and morally
superior to others. Read carefully some of Jesus’ most well-known
comments on hypocrisy and public piety:
Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you
judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you
measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter
in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your
own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that
splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You
hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you
will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.
(Matthew 7:1-5 NAB)
(But) take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that
people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from
your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet
before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the
streets to win the praise of others. (Matthew 6: 1-2a NAB)
For Jesus, hypocrisy is clearly wrong, but it is a wrong intimately
tied to a type of moral and spiritual triumphalism, just the sort
that one finds in the writings of those who gleefully celebrate the
moral failings of Pastor Haggard. Those who think of the detecting
and condemnation of hypocrisy as sport, which is the dominant
understanding of the liberal-secular chattering class, are not
serious about the wrongness of hypocrisy. For such seriousness
requires a tragic understanding of the human condition, that one is
just as susceptible to sin’s temptation as any other, and that it
is only by God’s grace and the support of the church that we can
find forgiveness, redemption, and the strength to carry our cross.
But the liberal-secular chattering class does not believe any of
this. So, their detection and condemnation of hypocrisy is
disingenuous at best and mean-spirited at worst.
But why would anyone think hypocrisy wrong? Of course,
Christian, Jews, and Muslims can point to the clear teaching of
their scriptures on this matter. More sophisticated theists may
also make a natural law argument, that human beings are designed in
such a way that certain acts, behaviors, and thoughts, including
hypocrisy, are inconsistent with the acquisition of our personal
virtue and thus our good. So, it makes sense for Jesus to condemn
the hypocrite, for Jesus no doubt held that a good soul was better
than a good reputation, and if one were to have the latter it
should be the result of the former.
But it’s not clear to what a typical liberal-secularist could
appeal in order to condemn hypocrisy. He could, I suppose, argue
that all he is doing is pointing out that the hypocrite is living
inconsistently with his moral theology. But that’s just an
observation, not a judgment. After all, if the hypocrite were a
religious cannibal who preached the virtues of cannibalism every
Sunday and yet in private chose to abstain from his theology’s
culinary demands, most of us would praise, rather than condemn, the
hypocrite’s “hypocrisy.” So, for the liberal-secularist, as with
the Christian, not all cases of “hypocrisy” are per se wrong. In
fact, in some cases we would prefer that people live
inconsistently with what they preach, because what they
preach is so horrid that it is better that we leave them
undisturbed with their hypocrisy than draw their attention to it.
For one way to correct the inconsistency is for the hypocrites to
begin practicing what they preach. God forbid.
So, how does the liberal-secularist find warrant for his moral
judgment that hypocrisy is wrong? I do not know. He cannot appeal
to the scriptures of the great theistic faiths, for it is in those
very texts that his political adversaries find condemnation of
those activities that he considers morally benign, such as atheism,
homosexuality, and fornication. What about a natural law argument,
one that offers an understanding of human beings as designed agents
that have an end or good that can only be achieved by certain
virtues and practices? But now he’s on the turf of those who appeal
to the natural law to condemn homosexuality. After all, could not
the hypocrite, like the liberal-secularist who defends
homosexuality as a congenital property well-suited for the
constitutions of those who have it, argue that the hypocrite was
born with his hypocrisy, that it is deeply connected to his
identity, that his personal religious beliefs do not condemn
hypocrisy, and/or that he enjoys the fellowship and friendship of
other similarly-situated hypocrites. And besides, who are you to
judge? Waxing Darwinian, which would no doubt impress Richard
Dawkins, the hypocrite could argue that hypocrites have always been
with us, and so perhaps it is evolutionarily helpful to the species
to have a certain number of them in our population. It seems, then,
that the liberal-secularist’s worldview is bereft of resources by
which he may condemn hypocrisy as morally wrong.
Sadly, the liberal-secularlist does not, indeed cannot, see
hypocrisy as tragic, as Jesus did. And, worse still, he cannot give
an adequate moral account of why hypocrisy is wrong. Thus, it must
be something less than noble that rouses the liberal-secularlist to
joyfully draw others’ attention to the foibles of hypocrites.
Perhaps by finding fault in Jesus’ pretended followers, the
liberal-secularist thinks he can mollify his nagging doubt that
Jesus may have indeed been right that we live in a moral universe?
Perhaps. But, as we have seen, it cannot be because the
liberal-secularist has a serious moral understanding of the human
condition.
Christians and other theists do not have the same luxury to
plead ignorance. We are both constrained and liberated by the awful
truth about ourselves, and for this reason we must humbly pray,
“But, for the grace of God, go I.”
