I also mentioned in my Bible class that hardly better examples of our struggle with making appropriate judgments can be found than in the realm of politics. When an elected official is not a member of whatever party we prefer, we can sometimes treat them as if they can do no right, even if they have some noble achievements or proposals. But if a person is a member of our preferred party, we can sometimes treat them as if they can do no wrong, even if they have acted wickedly and inexcusably. We minimize what they have done simply by pointing to an opposing political ideology that, in our minds, is “even worse.”
In his daily news briefing, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Albert Mohler, brought to my attention two op-ed pieces, both published a week ago Sunday across from each other in the opinion pages of The New York Times. One was by the left-leaning Jennifer Weiner and titled “The Flagrant Sexual Hypocrisy of Conservative Men.” The other was by the right-leaning Ross Douthat and titled “The Pigs of Liberalism.” Here, conveniently divided by the fold in the newspaper, is our political divide laid bare, nestled neatly in newsprint. Ms. Weiner decried the breathtaking schizophrenia of Representative Tim Murphy, a Republican from Pennsylvania, who, while taking a consistently pro-life stance as a politician and voting for pro-life legislation, quietly encouraged his mistress to get an abortion when she found out she was pregnant. Mr. Douthat’s piece chronicled the all-around sliminess of Hollywood mogul and liberal icon Harvey Weinstein, who, in a bombshell piece of investigative reporting in The New York Times, was revealed to have harassed and, perhaps, even sexually assaulted dozens of women over the course of decades.
Though both Mr. Murphy and Mr. Weinstein’s actions, because of the egregiousness of their offenses, have been, thankfully, broadly and forcefully denounced regardless of their political commitments, oftentimes, excusing the inexcusable has become par for the course in many of our political debates, particularly, interestingly enough, when it comes to sexual misdeeds. A desire to see a political ideology defeated can often eclipse a commitment to get some basic ethical principles right.
In one way, this is not surprising. The Pew Research Center published a report earlier this month on the widening political divides in American life. Most striking is this chart, which shows just how far apart Republicans and Democrats have drifted – or, as the case may be, run – away from each other ideologically since 1994.
When political ideologies become this disparate, it is not surprising that a desire to promote your preferred ideology generally can trump and excuse the public proponents of your ideological stripe when they do not practice your ideological commitments specifically.
So, what is the way through all of our excuses, minimizations, and rationalizations of people who tout a particular political ideology publicly while, at the same time, shirking it personally? First, we must understand that such instances of hypocrisy are not, at their root, political. They are spiritual. A particular political ideology that we don’t like is not our ultimate problem. Sin is our ultimate problem. This is why both conservatives and liberals can fall prey to vile sinfulness, as the cases of Mr. Murphy and Mr. Weinstein illustrate. The titles of the recent op-ed pieces in The New York Times could have just as easily, and perhaps more accurately, been titled “The Flagrant Sexual Hypocrisy of Sinful Men” and “The Pigs of Depravity.” As long as we pretend that a particular political ideology is a categorical evil to be defeated, we will only fall prey to more evil. Political ideologies certainly have problems, but they are not, in and of themselves, the ultimate problem. We are.
Second, we must also be careful not to conclude that because someone espouses a certain ideology while not living up to it, their ideology is ipso facto wrong. There are many factors that can make an ideology – or an aspect of an ideology – wrong, but a failure to live up to the ideology in question is not necessarily one of them. A pro-life ideology is still morally right in principle even if Mr. Murphy was wrong in is his actions. A strong ideology against sexual assault and harassment is still morally right in principle even if Mr. Weinstein was wrong in his failure to live up to this strong ideology.
Third, in a culture that regularly falls short of its values, we must not fall prey to the temptation to indiscriminately shift values to excuse behavior. Instead, we must call those who espouse certain ideological values to actually live according to them. In other words, we need to learn how to lovingly judge people’s actions according to rigorous ethical commitments and call people to repentance instead of downplaying and downgrading ethical commitments because we’re desperate to gain or to retain some kind of power. After all, power without ethical commitments can never be exercised well, no matter which side of the political divide exercises it, because power that is not subject to a higher moral power can, if not held accountable, quickly degenerate into tyranny.
Jesus famously said, “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly” (John 7:24). It is time for us to look beyond the surface of our political divides and peer into the character of our culture. What we find there will probably unsettle us, but it will also call us to some sober reflection and compel us to want something better for ourselves and for our society. I pray we have the wherewithal for such reflection.
“I see some men that are men in mind and body and a great many that are only men in body.”
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