Fragment #7: Hypocrisy
Note: The following essay is written by a hypocrite, which, ordinarily, does not behoove a writer to admit, but in this case, you might say it makes him a subject matter expert.
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I recently attended a conference in downtown Atlanta for my day job, the one that “keeps my body and soul intact” as one friend put it. Throughout the week, I had several conversations with coworkers about their views on religion and other sundry topics that would no doubt please HR. I noticed a faint but common thread tying together these interactions: most people, myself included, have witnessed some form of religious hypocrisy firsthand, and in many cases, this leads us to reject organized religion or faith altogether.
We can accept that our politicians are two-faced, but we feel violated when the pastor preaches charity to the poor out the window of his Rolls Royce. We shrug when we hear of our neighbor’s infidelity but are moved to anger when we catch the priest carrying on a sordid affair in the inner sacristy. A sex abuse scandal in Hollywood is reprehensible, yes, but how much worse when it occurs in the Catholic church.
Religious hypocrisy is worse than other forms. In a sense, it is understandable that many lose faith because of the wickedness they have seen practiced by those who preach love and virtue. And yet, ironically, this highlights our need for religion. As Chesterton says, “The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do.”1
The central Christian claim is that all humans have fallen short of the glory of God and that faith, not virtue, is the antidote to our fallen state. The hypocrisy endemic among the religious, the corruption of Rome and its long line of wicked popes, the not-so-holy wars waged and the rivers that run red with the blood they have shed, all this underscores the darkness of the human soul and its need for a saving Light.
It's no coincidence, then, that western religion’s most famous adherents are remarkable cowards and hypocrites. We need only hear a cock’s crow to be reminded of Peter’s denial of Christ, mere hours after he declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.”2 Or what are we to say of Judas, one of Jesus’s closest friends and betrayer; King David, an adulterer and murderer; or Paul, a persecutor of the very faith for which he would later proclaim farther and wider than any man? Or what of all the disciples who echoed Peter’s bold claim and yet scattered like sheep as Jesus mounted Calvary?
Every religion has its pharisees, and in the cemetery of every church are whitewashed tombs.
To reject organized religion because our local church has a crooked pastor or because our neighbor is a Bible-thumping bigot, this is no more sensible than refusing to treat our cancer because the doctor happens to have cancer himself. If we think we ought to change religions, if we want to explore Buddhism, Islam, or some trendy new cult, by all means. But we must not think we are healthy when our souls are terminally ill, or reject the healing hands of a divine Doctor because we’ve dealt with his incompetent interns.
I cannot convince you that you are sick. Nor will I try. I can only speak for my own heart—a dark cavern of hypocrisy.
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There is nothing so dangerous as a man convinced of his own goodness.
It’s tempting to look at religious hypocrites and pat ourselves on the back. At least we’re not the priest stealing from the collection basket, or the pastor cheating on his wife. But this sort of pride is a perilous trap.
Far better that we humbly accept there is something of a hypocrite in us all, and that far from excluding the existence of a loving God, this duplicitous nature so common in man begs for someone or something greater than ourselves to transform our hearts. In faith, we can say, “I believe there is something good hidden in my hypocritical humanity, and that something is you, my Maker. Why you allow us, your followers, to paint such a crude tableau of your love, profane your holy name, and so often lead others astray, I do not know—and yet I still believe—I believe there is something good in me, in my darkness, in my hypocrisy, and that something is not me but You.”
I believe there is not enough darkness in my soul or yours, or in the entire world, to snuff out the Light by which we walk.
“The Everlasting Man” by G.K. Chesterton
Mark 14:31