Posted by
Playful Walrus on Wednesday, September 05, 2007 12:44:18 PM
As David Limbaugh
points out in his column, there are very few sins that our culture considers sins anymore, and few crimes a politician can commit that rile people up. One of the worse things someone can do now be is a “hypocrite”. Yes, supposedly you are a “hypocrite” if you understand that marriage is something requiring the participation of both sexes
and you have pled guilty to charges stemming from an alleged solicitation of a same-sex encounter in a restroom. You are a hypocrite if you are a parent who did drugs as a teen
and you now tell your own teen not to.
Since none of us are perfect, the easy solution, of course, is to never take a stand on anything. After all, isn’t it worse to be a hypocrite than to say, rob a bank? This is what the hedonists and career criminals want us to believe. They want to disarm everyone by calling them hypocrites so that nobody will echo their conscience in reminding them that there are some things they ought not do.
Never mind that the true definition of hypocrisy is
professing to
believe one thing and
really believing something opposite. While
saying something would seem to indicate that you believe it, it isn’t necessarily so, and while
doing something would ideally be based on your true beliefs, it isn’t always the case. It is possible to truly believe that fornication is wrong but still enjoy doing it when you are in that moment.
Just because someone
votes for something (marriage requires the participation of both sexes) that
you assume comes with all sorts of baggage (homosexual behavior is wrong), doesn’t make someone a hypocrite even if he really did seek out homosexual behavior. There are just too many factors at play.
A true example of hypocrisy would be, say, telling everyone you believe that we all need to cut down on carbon emissions for the sake of the environment but really believing that carbon emissions aren’t harming the environment, but controlling them will give you the power you want. We don’t know anybody like that, do we?
But what to do? Should we cave in and drop our standards? No. Just because we may err does not mean we should shy away from recognizing the distinction between right and wrong. It means we should strive to make restitution for our errors, confess our sins, and highlight as examples people who do right when they do right.
People who elevate suspected hypocrisy to a major crime against humanity, especially in the case of a parent who warns their kids about drugs, are making as much sense as someone who takes Jesus’ admonition about “committing adultery in your heart” as an excuse to cheat on your spouse because you’ve already fantasized about doing it.
Don’t fall for it. Hypocrisy is not good, but to the solution is to improve our behavior, not lower our standards.