Hypocrisy is pride’s cop-out for personal responsibility:
“Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5 NASB).
Over the past month, many politicians have pontificated on what their opponents should be doing on public policies. Some even take Scripture passages out-of-context[1] to justify their own political talking points,[2] while ignoring similar crises in their own districts and states.
For example, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi represents the Bay Area. While she attacks national leadership for their lack of action on pressing humanitarian problems, ironically her own district has experienced a 43% influx in homelessness and its associated lifestyle problems.[3] As one local resident reported…
“It’s normal for him to see at least 10-20 needles every day as he walks to work, and at least five to 10 pounds of feces. The worst part, he added, is the smell.”[4]
Some of the homeless population are even occupying “barges, sailboats and other mostly decrepit vessels” to live rent-free on the open water. The humanitarian problems in her district are both significant and growing.
Similarly, while the mayor of New York City is out campaigning for president on the platform of a new Green Deal,[5] the city has become rat-infested due to overflowing garbage that is not being handled or addressed.[6]
Long ago, Abraham Lincoln commented on a similarly visible hypocrisy in his day, as some leaders picked-and-chose a self-designed “morality” to fit their own purposes:
“As a nation, we begin by declaring that ‘all men are created equal’...[Yet w]hen the Know-Nothings [a political party] get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except’….When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”[7]
If there’s anything that should give a Christian indigestion, it’s hypocrisy. Jesus declared:
“So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see” (Revelation 3:16-18 NASB).
As people of faith, our first responsibility is to look inward and evaluate whether our beliefs are matching our actions. We then must similarly filter the talking points of others—including our “representatives”—and interpret their self-professed values and agenda by their real-life actions.
Jesus said it best:
“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit” (Matthew 7:16-18 NASB).
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[1] Pelosi, N. (2019, July 16). Pelosi floor speech in support of resolution condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at members of Congress. Retrieved from https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/71619/
[2] Chamberlain, S. (2018, December 25). Ocasio-Cortez says Jesus was a 'refugee' in Christmas tweet. Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ocasio-cortez-says-jesus-was-refugee-in-christmas-tweet
[3] Eby, K. (2019, July 23). History of how many people are homeless in the Bay Area. Retrieved from https://abc7news.com/society/homeless-population-history-in-bay-area/5260657/
[4] Hopkins, A. (2019, April 24). Lawrence Jones: Needles, drug use and human waste are the new normal in San Francisco. Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/us/lawrence-jones-san-francisco-needles-feces
[5] De Blasio holds green new deal rally at Trump Tower. (2019, May 13). Retrieved from https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/De-Blasio-Green-New-Deal-Rally-Trump-Tower-Climate-Change-Greenhouse-Gas-Emissions-New-York-City-Environment-509853331.html
[6] Hines, M. (2019, July 17). New York City removed 110 trash cans. Now garbage is overflowing and the rats are 'running wild.’ Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/17/new-york-city-rat-problem-running-wild-upper-west-side/1754163001/
[7] Lincoln, A. (1855, August 24). Letter to Joshua F. Speed. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/knownothingparty.htm
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