Larry Elder LAYS INTO the hypocritical Left and their constant “selective outrage” on issues important to the American people. This is Larry at his best, with his keen mind and memory laying bare the Left’s tendency to make the trivial seem important and the important seem trivial.
Hypocrite
Double Standards – It Depends On Who Is In Office
Larry Elder nails down some double standards that Democrats enjoy and the media perpetuates. Larry zeros in on an example using Oprah Winfrey and a Larry King interview of Donald Trump. I include near the end Larry and Professor John Eastman discussing the topic as well.
Hollywood’s Hypocrisy At Large
CAUTION, ADULT THEMES
HOTAIR notes the following HOLLYWOOD REPORTER piece:
Tuesday I wrote about actress Reese Witherspoon who told a “Women in Hollywood” event held in Beverly Hills that she had been sexually assaulted several times in her career, starting at age sixteen. Actress Jessica Chastain was at the same event and she offered her own take on the scandal, suggesting that Hollywood was full of complete and utter hypocrites. From the Hollywood Reporter:
“This is an industry rife with racism, sexism and homophobia,” she said, speaking to a room full of women including Laura Dern, Riley Keough and Aaron Sorkin. “It is so closely woven into the fabric of the business that we have become snowblind to the glaring injustices happening every day.”
She continued, “Oh we’re very quick to point the finger at others and address the issue with social action and fundraising. Yet there is a clear disconnect between how we practice what we preach in our industry.”…
[….]
…“We rally against the presidential candidate who slants a narrative of his sexual assault as mere locker room talk, but at the same time we ignore the stories and warnings of sexual predators in our offices.”
Democrat and Hollywood Hypocrisy – Harvey Weinstein
Larry Elder takes us on a Democrat infested mine-field courtesy of Harvey Weinstein. For more on the mentioned “Nuts or Sluts defense,” see Larry’s detailed explanation HERE. And more anti-woman positions by Hillary, see HERE.
Gay Patriot grabs this excerpt to point to how good of a progressive Weinstein was….
In 2015, [Weinstein’s] company distributed “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary about campus sexual assault. A longtime Democratic donor, he hosted a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton in his Manhattan home last year. He employed Malia Obama, the oldest daughter of former President Barack Obama, as an intern this year, and recently helped endow a faculty chair at Rutgers University in Gloria Steinem’s name. During the Sundance Film Festival in January, when Park City, Utah, held its version of nationwide women’s marches, Mr. Weinstein joined the parade.
ALSO…
- Weinstein sexual harassment controversy exposes Hollywood’s double standard (LA Times)
- Yashar Ali calls Michael Moore OUT for being a silent COWARD about Harvey Weinstein! (Twitchy)
- ‘Your Silence Is Deafening’: Oscar-Winning Actresses Who Worked with Harvey Weinstein Stay Quiet on Sexual Harassment Claims (Breitbart)
- Lisa Bloom Resigns As Weinstein’s Adviser As A-List Actresses Like Meryl Streep Remain Silent (HotAir)
- How Hollywood has reacted to Weinstein allegations (CNN)
- The Week In Pictures: That Sorry Time Of Year Edition (Powerline)
Kathy Griffin’s Jihad (Plus Flashbacks)
(POWERLINE >>) Remember how Sarah Palin was blamed for the Gabby Giffords shooting because her Facebook page featured “targets” over congressional districts Republicans wanted to pick up in the next election, and President Obama’s subsequent speech calling for more “civility” in our political discourse? Yeah, apparently that’s another liberal theme with an expiration date. Always worth remembering that if liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.
These tolerant, peace loving Democrats seem to call for the killing of Republicans often. Here is another comedian posting a horrid scenario:
Of course, in similar fashion to the spoofed video above… people got to work to “bagging” Lopez… but this runs counter to the CLAIMS of the Left but fits perfectly with the HISTORY of the Left:
FLASHBACK:
- Joe Scarborough: “You can draw a straight line from Republican candidates thinking that sort of behavior is okay when you have Donald Trump berating reporters, throughout the entire campaign, suggesting terrible things, calling them – using the Stalinist term ‘enemy of the people.’ A term so offensive even in the Soviet Union that Khrushchev outlawed it after Stalin died…This is not a big leap from what the head of the Republican Party is saying every day and what happened last night in Montana.”
- Don Lemon: Mr. Lemon suggested that Mr. Gianforte’s behavior is somehow linked to the “guy who’s in office now” who has “said very horrible things about reporters and has said that the reporters are the enemy of the American people.” | Mr. Dennard disagreed, stating plainly, “No, Don.” | “That has nothing to do with anything?” Mr. Lemon continued. “That people feel that they can get away with it, because I don’t believe that you actually believe that. There’s no way you believe what you’re saying.
But think about this for a second. The Giffords shooting sent the media elite in this country into a bout of St. Vitus’s dance that would have warranted an army of exorcists in previous ages. Sarah Palin’s Facebook map was an evil totem that forced some guy to go on a shooting spree. The New York Times, the Washington Post, all three broadcast networks — particularly NBC whose senior foreign-affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, devotes, by my rough reckoning, ten times as much air time to whining about Sarah Palin as she does about anything having to do with foreign affairs — flooded the zone with “Have you no shame” finger wagging. A memo went forth demanding that everyone at MSNBC get their dresses over their heads about the evil “tone” from the right. Media Matters went into overdrive working the interns 24/7 to “prove” that Republicans deliberately foment violence with their evil targets on their evil congressional maps.
Everyone “knew” the shooter was a tea partier. Except he wasn’t. He wasn’t even a conservative. He was a sick, demented, nutball. And it still didn’t matter! More bleating and caterwauling about the “tone” followed. More chin stroking and tut-tutting from Meet the Press roundtables and “very special segments” on the Today Show. More pizzas were ordered for the Media Matters galley slaves.
[….]
Tom Friedman — who knows a bit about Hezbollah — calls the tea partiers the “Hezbollah faction” of the GOP bent on taking the country on a “suicide mission.” All over the place, conservative Republicans are “hostage takers” and “terrorists,” “terrorists” and “traitors.” They want to “end life as we know it on this planet,” says Nancy Pelosi. They are betraying the Founders, too. Chris Matthews all but signs up for the “Make an Ass of Yourself” contest at the State Fair. Joe Nocera writes today that “the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests.” Lord knows what Krugman and Olbermann have said.
Then last night, on the very day Gabby Giffords heroically returns to cast her first vote since that tragic attack seven months ago, the vice president of the United States calls the Republican party a bunch of terrorists.
First Impulse: Let’s Blame Conservatives
Arizona Daily Star columnist/cartoonist David Fitzsimmons: “I must tell you as a columnist who has covered politics in this state, it was inevitable, from my perspective.”
Anchor Martin Savidge: “Why do you say that?”
Fitzsimmons: “Because the right in Arizona, and I’m speaking very broadly, has been stoking the fires of a heated anger and rage successfully in this state….The politics of the state does tend to be far to the right. I would say even rabid right.”
— Exchange at about 2:30pm ET during CNN’s live coverage of the Giffords shooting, January 8. Fitzsimmons later conceded his remarks were “inappropriate.”
“Remember, this is the deepest fear that was in the back of everybody’s mind going through the health care debate. A lot of members were threatened. Congresswoman Giffords’ windows at her district office were broken….There is [sic] a lot of fringe groups that were very upset with the health care law, felt that the federal government was overstepping its bounds, and that was in — within everyone’s mind. It looks sadly like it’s come to fruition today.”
— NBC/MSNBC correspondent Luke Russert during MSNBC live coverage at about 3:30pm ET January 8.
“We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before….Her father says that ‘the whole Tea Party’ was her enemy. And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous ‘crosshairs’ list. Just yesterday, Ezra Klein remarked that opposition to health reform was getting scary. Actually, it’s been scary for quite a while, in a way that already reminded many of us of the climate that preceded the Oklahoma City bombing….Violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.”
— New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in a 3:22pm ET January 8 blog posting, less than two hours after news broke of Giffords’ shooting.
Smarmily Singling Out Sarah Palin
“You know, Congresswoman Giffords had received threats before. That’s something that we might have overlooked here. Her office was trashed during the health care debate. When she showed up on Sarah Palin’s political action committee Web site as one of those who had been targeted for defeat, it shows her in the crosshairs there. She warned herself that this kind of thing could have serious repercussions.”
— CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation, January 9.
Whatever the Shooter’s Motive, We’re Going to Bash Palin
“While the exact motivations of the suspect in the shootings remained unclear, an Internet site tied to the man, Jared Lee Loughner, contained anti-government ramblings. And regardless of what led to the episode, it quickly focused attention on the degree to which inflammatory language, threats and implicit instigations to violence have become a steady undercurrent in the nation’s political culture….Ms. Giffords was also among a group of Democratic House candidates featured on the Web site of Sarah Palin’s political action committee with crosshairs over their districts, a fact that disturbed Ms. Giffords at the time.”
— New York Times reporters Carl Hulse and Kate Zernike in a January 9 front-page item, “Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics.”
The Tucson Shooting: Let’s Blame Talk Radio
“What’s been the role of talk radio in fueling the heated language?…People like Mark Levin, Michael Savage, for example who every time you listen to them are furious, furious at the Left with anger that just builds and builds in their voice, and by the time they go to commercial, they’re just in some rage, every night, with ugly talk. Ugly sounding talk. And it never changes. It never modulates…. They do see the other end of the field as evil, as awful. Not just disagreeable but evil. And they use that language, when they talk about the other side, isn’t that part of the problem? And my question is doesn’t that give the moral license to people who have crazy minds to start with?”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Hardball, January 11.
New York Times Double Standard on Jumping to Conclusions
“It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge….That whirlwind has touched down most forcefully in Arizona, which Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described after the shooting as the capital of ‘the anger, the hatred and the bigotry that goes on in this country.’”
— January 10 New York Times editorial, “Bloodshed and Invective in Arizona.”
vs.
“In the aftermath of this unforgivable attack, it will be important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East. President Obama was right when he told Americans, ‘we don’t know all the answers yet’ and cautioned everyone against ‘jumping to conclusions.’”
— From a November 7, 2009 New York Times editorial after the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas.
Chelsea Handler vs. Chelsea Handler
YOUNG CONSERVATIVES discusses Chelsea Handler’s rhetoric:
…She was asked if she would ever interview Donald Trump, something that she told other outlets she would never do. She was also asked if she would interview Melania Trump.
“Melania? To talk about what? She can barely speak English,” she laughed.
When asked what she thought of Melania as the First Lady, she said that it was “exactly what she thought of him as the First Man” which was “Nothing. I don’t respect either one of those people.”
So here’s the thing.
You’re at a “Women’s March” standing in front of a sign that preaches equality, tolerance and strength. Another sign says, “No human is illegal.”
But you’re mocking someone’s ability to speak English?
Where’s your respect for another woman, an immigrant, someone who worked hard to succeed?…
CHICKS ON THE RIGHT also weighs in:
…“Melania can barely speak English.”
So… what, are you anti-immigrant now, Chelsea? I thought the left was all about being inclusive and tolerant toward people who weren’t from America. Or is that just people who come here illegally and don’t run their own companies and make their own way, but instead sit on government welfare on the taxpayer dime?
Yeah, that’s soooo unifying and inclusive of you to say. What. A. Hag….
BOOM! Free Association For Powerful Liberals Only?
Thank you REASON for this, h-t to professor George:
Fashion Designers Are Boycotting Melania Trump. Shouldn’t Bakers and Florists Have the Same Right? ~ Free Association Should Not Be For Powerful Liberals Only.
“As one who celebrates and strives for diversity, individual freedom, and respect for all lifestyles, I will not participate in dressing or associating in any way with the next First Lady,” wrote fashion designer Sophie Theallet in an open letter this week.
People magazine reports Theallet, who has designed and donated clothes for outgoing First Lady Michelle Obama numerous times over the last eight years, may not be alone: “A source tells People, ‘This has already been going on for months. Designers wouldn’t lend to Melania, Ivanka or Tiffany, so they either bought the items themselves or wore Ivanka’s brand. … There was a lot of shopping their own closets.'”
Personally, I applaud Theallet’s design to disassociate herself with the next occupant of the White House. I see Donald Trump as a shameful human being with few redeeming qualities as a leader and even fewer as a person, and if I were a business owner, I too would decline to serve his administration.
Likewise, I support Bruce Springsteen’s right to cancel his concerts in North Carolina in protest of the state’s transgender-bathroom policies.
Both are examples of associational freedom—the right to make decisions for yourself about how and with whom you spend your time and energy. This includes the right not to take on a client or project that elevates, in your view, a value you disagree with.
The problem is not that Theallet was willing to dress Michelle Obama and isn’t willing to dress Melania Trump (which is, like it or not, a form of discrimination). The problem is just how many people don’t seem to think that same freedom should be extended to bakery owners, photographers, and other wedding vendors who object to same-sex marriage on religious grounds.
[….]
Rights cannot be just for those who will use them to uphold the values you agree with. They must also be for those who will take positions you can’t fathom for reasons you can’t stomach. Free association, and the freedom to live out your convictions expressively in how you make a living, cannot be reserved for rock stars and fashion designers and other powerful liberals, while being denied to regular Americans.
“As a family owned company, our bottom line is not just about money,” Theallet writes in her open letter. “We value our artistic freedom.” Hear, hear.
Peaceful Transitions (John and Ken)
THE FEDERALIST notes how the following liberals are outraged at Trump’s statements… but have rejected results or called them into question in the past:
1. Labor Union Leader Roseann Demoro — The national vice president of the AFL-CIO wrote an article for Salon in which she explained how the Democratic Party primary was “rigged from the start.”…
2. NYU Professor Mark Crispin Miller — This New York University professor has taught several courses and authored several books claiming that George W. Bush’s presidential victories in 2000 and again in 2004 were the result of large-scale fraud. After John Kerry lost the 2004 presidential election, Miller told Democracy Now! that the Democratic nominee said the election was stolen from him….
3. Vox’s Ezra Klein — In 2014, Klein wrote a piece explaining that the election process is skewed in favor of incumbent candidates. Once in office, candidates often get to have a say in where the electoral lines are drawn — which means they can gerrymander their way into staying in office….
4. Vox’s Dara Lind — Lind wrote a piece today entitled “A short history of white people rigging elections,” in which she explains how white people intimidated black people by acting violently towards them at the polls….
5. Politico‘s Ben Wofford — In August, Wofford wrote a piece explaining how the election could be hacked in seven minutes. The piece focuses on a professor who bought an $82 voting machine and hacked with it so he could manipulate results….
6. Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall — In 2006, Marshall accused the Ohio secretary of State of helping to steal the 2004 election in favor of Bush. Now, he says Trump’s claims of election-rigging are “disgusting.”….
7. Salon’s Farhad Manjoo — “Was the New Hampshire vote stolen?” Manjoo asked of the 2008 New Hampshire primary Clinton unexpectedly won….
8. Sen. Elizabeth Warren — Today, Warren chided Trump on Twitter…. In 2013, however, Warren went on the Senate floor to chastise Republicans for making“naked attempts to nullify the results of the last presidential election. To force us to govern as though President Obama hadn’t won the 2012 election.”….
When Trump claims the system is rigged, he’s a crazy conspiracy theorist.
When Dems claim it’s rigged, they’re paragons of wisdom. pic.twitter.com/tnlY9lJ6yd
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 18, 2016
See more examples:
- Flashback: Gore Refuses To Concede Election, Demands Recount ‘To Ensure All The Votes Are Counted’
- Last week Hillary agreed that Gore ‘won’ 2000 election
- Newsweek: Hillary Clinton to Crowd at Fund-Raiser in Los Angeles: Bush Was ‘Selected’ President, Not Elected; Says Bush’s Machine Has Raised Far More Money to ‘Ruin the Reputations of Our Candidates’
- John Kerry Thinks Bush Rigged The 2004 Election
The “Obama Boner” Heard Around the World
He purposely flaunts his erection toward the females… you can see one woman walk away disgusted at Obama’s behavior. I bet the woman laughing in the recording is self-righteously attacking Trump’s behavior while idolizing Soetoro. This is also a great example of media bias. This video is from 2008… it was hid to protect the Democrat, the Trump audio was used to attack the Republican.
Video Description:
- President Obama showing off his erection to giggling female reporters. 2008 video by CNN surfaces Obama showing off his erection. President Obama sexually harasses female staff. Obama exposes himself while having erection. Obama boner.
Larry Elder Dives Into Trump’s Taxes
Larry Elder destroys the Democrats talking points on Trump not paying taxes. Like I have said before this is not an argument against Trump but an argument against the progressive tax system as currently in our tax law code.
Clinton Cash (Movie) and Campaign Donor List! [+ More]
Clinton Cash, is a feature documentary based on the Peter Schweizer book that the New York Times hailed as “The most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle.”
Clinton Cash investigates how Bill and Hillary Clinton went from being “dead broke” after leaving the White House to amassing a net worth of over $150 million, with over $2 billion in donations to their foundation. This wealth was accumulated during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as US Secretary of State through lucrative speaking fees and contracts paid for by foreign companies and Clinton Foundation donors.
The following is with a h-t to YOUNG CONSERVATIVES, and comes by way of THE FEDERALIST PAPERS!
….Topping Hillary’s list is the Saban Capital Group. The “private investment firm,” (read: hedge fund) has given the Clinton campaign more than $10 million this year alone. Founded by Hami Saban, an Jewish Egyptian national, he has said his greatest concern is to protect Israel. He is also part owner of Univision, Hillary Clinton’s greatest Spanish-language cheerleader. Here’s how the New Yorker described his relationship with the Clintons:
By far his most important relationship is with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2002, Saban donated five million dollars to Bill Clinton’s Presidential library, and he has given more than five million dollars to the Clinton Foundation. In February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a major policy address at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, co-sponsored by the Saban Center. And last November Bill Clinton was a featured speaker at the Saban Forum, an annual conference attended by many high-level Israeli and U.S. government officials, which was held in Jerusalem. Ynon Kreiz, an Israeli who was the chairman and chief executive of a Saban company and Saban’s closest associate for many years, attended the conference, and when I commented that his former boss appeared to be positively smitten with Bill Clinton, Kreiz replied, grinning broadly, “No! No! I remember once Haim was talking to me on the phone, and he said in Hebrew, without changing his tone so Clinton would have no idea he was speaking about him, ‘The President of the United States, wearing his boxers, is coming down the stairs, and I am going to have to stop talking and go have breakfast with him.’”
A close second on the list is Renaissance Technologies, another hedge fund. They sunk $9.5 million into Hillary’s campaign this year. Founder James Simons has given more than $30 million to Democrats and their campaigns since 2006.
[….]
…It’s important to note that Trump’s top contributor has given a fraction of all the people on Hillary’s list.
The John Powers Middleton Companies gave $150,000 to Trump this year. Middleton is a TV producer who co-producedThe Lego Movie.
Also on the list? A boring group of contributors, really.
There’s a financial group that gave $50,000, a realty company. The AON Corporation. All told, Trump has received zerodollars from Political Action Committees and has self-funded 56 percent of his campaign.
Love him or hate him, he answers to nobody but himself and the American people….
Take note that if you combine the above with this… you have in the Democratic Party EVERYTHING the Republicans are accused of. An example:
From maligning and subverting others in the race (GOP or Democrat), from taking bribes, to making bribes… what has happened here in the primary is a giant leap ahead of what Democrats accuse George Bush of doing in Florida. Florida is chicken feed to what was revealed from these leaked DNC emails. On the DNC Convention floor, Bernie signs were confiscated, they censored the California delegation with “white noise speakers” and “reserving” the seats. It is worth noting that the woman behind this original censoring in the leaked DNC emails, stepped down because of this activity… to only be immediately hired by Hillary’s campaign. I would also posit that this almost Orwellian censoring at the Democrat Convention has Debbie Wasserman Schultz finger prints all over it.
Republicans are rightly called “the stupid party” (read here Donald Trump) and the Democrats are called “the evil party” (read here Hillary Clinton).
An old Washington joke is that the Republicans are called “the stupid party” and the Democrats are called “the evil party.” When the Republicans and Democrats get together on legislation, they do something both stupid and evil—and they call it “bipartisanship.”
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) called conservatives “the stupidest party” in his Considerations on Representative Government (1861). The newspaper columnist Samuel T. Francis (1947-2005) was credited in 1993 with writing “There are two parties in Washington: the Stupid Party and the Evil Party.” It’s probable that Francis wrote the full joke at some time in the 1980s or early 1990s. The joke (cited in print since at least 1999) is also often credited to an unnamed Congressional staffer, who was explaining the U.S. government to someone from Russia (or another country in the former Soviet Union).
I would rather be part of the Stupid Party.
Hypocrites in the Church ~ Conversation “from the Pit”
“We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with.” — C.S. Lewis
I wanted to update my earlier post with this from Andy Bannister (great book BTW) and STAND TO REASON’S clear insight… BEFORE getting to my original post. Enjoy:
The problem is us. We poison everything. And, as it happens, that is precisely why we need Jesus. Far from contradicting Christianity, the existence of sin in the world (even in the church) confirms this central truth of Christianity. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and “if we say that we have no sin, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).
At root, the objection that “Christians are hypocrites” comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of Christianity. It is widely believed (sadly, even by some who claim to be Christians) that Christianity is mainly about becoming a good person, and that being a good person is the way to heaven. This belief only glorifies the churchgoer, not God, for such a person is his only savior. It also inevitably leads to disillusionment and cynicism because it is false. No one is sinless, and anyone who expects otherwise of Christians will be let down sooner or later.
Christians, we openly recognize our sinfulness, so when someone accuses the church of housing sinners, that’s an opportunity to explain that our sin is the very reason why we go to church. We’re Christians because we know we sin. A Christian’s sin doesn’t contradict Christianity; it confirms it. It’s only more proof that we all need Jesus to take our sin and give us His righteousness….
(Originally posted September 6th, 2007)
This was a conversation with a very nice lady from work who wanted to discuss Christianity but couldn’t (or wouldn’t) get pass this point of hypocrites in the church. This wasn’t in conversation with me, but another Christian in my place of work and he asked me for a response and understanding on how to answer such a challenge. I mentioned that the best answer/response that was honest and forthright was one I read in a book by an ex-atheist, Reasons for Believing: A Seekers Guide to Christianity (emphasis added). At a later date the woman and I discussed the topic in the “Pit,” which is the specialty cubicle at Whole Foods:
GOD CONDEMNS HYPOCRISY
The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word hypocrites which means pretender or dissembler. It was originally used of Greek actors who uttered their lines behind masks. The word hypocrite was used to portray someone who was pretending to be someone else. A hypocrite is an actor, a person who pretends to be something he is not. Christ’s harshest words were reserved for hypocrites:
- Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which appear beautifully outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and uncleanliness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23:27-28).
Jesus was abrupt with hypocrites because the evil of hypocrisy. The scriptures repeatedly warn against hypocrisy (1 Timothy 4:1-2). Warnings are issued for true Christians to avoid association with them (1 Corinthians 5:11). Jesus foretold the ultimate fate of hypocrites; they will be identified and separated from true Christians for judgment (Matthew 7:21-23).
THERE ARE SOME HYPOCRITES IN THE CHURCH
The charge that the church is full of hypocrites is certainly just not true. To even say that the majority of Christians are hypocrites is distantly removed from reality. The reality is that only a small minority of Christians in the Church are hypocrites. This is something that the Church has never denied. There have always been and will always be some hypocrites in the Church.
Throughout history the Church has worked hard to identify and remove hypocrites from its ranks. Such has been the case in recent days with some prominent Christian leaders [book was written in the 90s]. But rather than congratulating the Church for its integrity, critics have focused n the negative.
NOT ALL CHRISTIANS ARE HYPOCRITES
It is wrong to condemn all Christian as hypocrites. Christians do not claim to be perfect. If Christianity claimed to be an organization for perfect people, then all Christians would be hypocrites.
Though not all Christians are hypocrites, all Christians are sinners. In fact, admitting that one is a sinner is a prerequisite to belonging to the Church. Public acknowledgment of one’s sinful condition is a condition for membership. Though hypocrisy is a sin, being a sinner does not necessarily make someone guilty of hypocrisy. The terms sinner and hypocrite are not synonyms.
- Many skeptics are actually guilty of imposing a double standard on Christians. They expect Christians to hold to standards they themselves could never dream of attain. Moreover, when Christians do try and live up to these standards, they are often accused of false piety and pretense.
Christians are not perfect; they are forgiven. They are seeking to become more Christ-like and Godly in their conduct. The vast majority of Christians fall into this category. They are sincerely striving to live the Christian life.
CHRIST IS NOT A HYPOCRITE
- When someone charges that the Church is full of hypocrites, they are really implying that because Christians fall short, Christianity also falls short. The central truth of Christianity does not rest in the performance of its followers but in the merit of its founder. Christianity stands or falls with the person of Jesus Christ. Thus, the real question is not are there hypocrites in the church, but rather, was Christ a hypocrite? (See Below)
This last point is an important one. Many point fingers to the followers, when, the character of the founder of the religion in question is what we are after — ultimately.
~ 33-minutes long ~
For Christ claimed something that no other founder of a world religion has. That is: to be Creator of the space/time continuum who loves us soo much that He willingly was led to the cross. This is a love story that is missing from all other religious narratives.
The nine founders among the eleven living religions in the world had characters which attracted many devoted followers during their own lifetime, and still larger numbers during the centuries of subsequent history. They were humble in certain respects, yet they were also confident of a great religious mission. Two of the nine, Mahavira and Buddha, were men so strong-minded and self-reliant that, according to the records, they displayed no need of any divine help, though they both taught the inexorable cosmic law of Karma. They are not reported as having possessed any consciousness of a supreme personal deity. Yet they have been strangely deified by their followers. Indeed, they themselves have been worshipped, even with multitudinous idols.
All of the nine founders of religion, with the exception of Jesus Christ, are reported in their respective sacred scriptures as having passed through a preliminary period of uncertainty, or of searching for religious light. Confucius, late in life, confessed his own sense of shortcomings and his desire for further improvement in knowledge and character. All the founders of the non-Christian religions evinced inconsistencies in their personal character; some of them altered their practical policies under change of circumstances.
Jesus Christ alone is reported as having had a consistent God consciousness, a consistent character himself, and a consistent program for his religion. The most remarkable and valuable aspect of the personality of Jesus Christ is the comprehensiveness and universal availability of his character, as well as its own loftiness, consistency, and sinlessness.
Robert Hume, The World’s Living Religions [New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959], 285-286.
Josh McDowell put it best on why there has to be judgment for our sins, let me paraphrase him with this story of a judge and his daughter.
There was a district court judge who had been on the bench for thirty years, he was a just judge. He has never taken a bribe, always handed out judgment and leniency in a fair and balanced way, only within the parameters of what the law allowed. In other words, a just, righteous member of the legal system as well as the community. One day while in session, his only child, a daughter, was brought before him with a traffic violation. She had broke the law and was arrested for her excessive speeding. What was he to do? He loved his daughter immensely, so he could fine her only one dollar and no jail time. But this would mean he would be an unjust judge, not worthy of the position he holds.
So instead, he fines her 500 hundred dollars and three days in jail. He is heart broken, but that is what the law requires. Just as soon as his gavel hits the bench, he rises from his chair, removes his robe of authority, steps down from the raised platform to come around to the front of the bench. He, with a tear in his eye, throws an arm around his daughter, whom he loves dearly, and with the other hand pays the fine and puts himself in her place in the three day sentence. This is TRUE love, and TRUE justice.
In the same way, the just God of the Bible is our judge. He would be un-worthy of our worship and honor if he acted any other way. He has pronounced death as the judgment of our rebellion and sin [Death and hell are merely eternal separation from him, and because of that, there will be gnashing of teeth]. As our heavenly Father, who knew us before we were in the womb, he loved us so much (His creation) that he stepped down from his heavenly throne to the earth and paid the price for our infractions against the “court.” No other god in history in any other religious belief cared so much as to offer the only acceptable (free of sin) gift, Himself. This is the beauty of the Christian faith.
God doesn’t put people he loves in “hell”, those people choose that place as a replacement for God’s already done work on the cross.
Read more: Good News Means There is Bad News (the choice in this cosmic drama is yours)
There is another aspect to this idea of hypocrisy. Often times the charge of hypocrisy is merely a psychological crutch to find people we deem worse than us in order to build up ourselves in a moral way. Or, it is done in order to not face our own failures and deeds in order to obfuscate what God wants to do in our own lives.
Jesus actually expands the definition a bit when He described the symptoms of hypocrisy specifically:
- hypocrites “love to be seen by others” (Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18);
- they invent weaselly excuses to disobey God while looking spiritual (Matthew 15:3-9);
- they manipulate spiritual language to disguise their actual agenda (Matthew 22:15-21);
- they might actually be preaching the truth, but they don’t follow it themselves (Matthew 23:1-12);
- and they major on nit-picky rules (even legitimate ones) and miss the heartbeat of God behind them (Matthew 23:13-36).
Often times the use of “hypocrisy” is a means of justifying spiritual compromise and departure from the inspired Word is something that the postmodern world has accelerated, not abated. People use hypocrisy as a way to abandoned Bible truths, or, to not fellowship with the body of Christ and thus be challenged to live a holy life (i.e., the church), often unleashing a myriad of wrongs committed by others! These same persons will joke about being headed to hell in a hand-basket — determined to share a place in hell with these hypocrites rather than spend time with them in church… there fellow hypocrites.
But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely on the Law [for your salvation] and boast in [your special relationship to] God, and [if you claim to] know His will and approve the things that are essential or have a sense of what is excellent, based on your instruction from the Law, and [if you] are confident that you are a [qualified] guide to the blind [those untaught in theology], a light to those who are in darkness, and [that you are] a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the [spiritually] childish, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth— well then, you who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal [in ways that are discrete, but just as sinful]? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who detest idols, do you rob [pagan] temples [of valuable idols and offerings]? YOU WHO BOAST IN THE LAW, DO YOU [REPEATEDLY] DISHONOR GOD BY BREAKING THE LAW? For, “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written [in Scripture]. (Romans 2:17-24, Amplified Bible).
One commentarry gets to the heart of the issue:
But now Paul turns the tables on them. They do not live up to their knowledge (cf. 13). They do not practise what they preach. Following his eight verbs which portray their identity, he asks five rhetorical questions, which draw attention to their inconsistency. The first is general: You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? (21a). It is followed by three questions about particular sins: You who preach against stealing, do you steal? (21b). You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? (22). The last-named might refer to the misappropriation of funds intended for the temple, since Josephus tells the story of just such a scandal, but Paul is more likely to have pagan temples in mind. You who abhor idols is an accurate portrayal of Jews. They recoiled from idolatry in horror. They would not dream of going anywhere near an idol temple, therefore—except for the purpose of robbery. In such cases ‘scruple broke down before thievish avarice’. Some commentators think all three sins so unlikely in Jewish leaders that they suggest a non-literal interpretation. ‘When theft, adultery and sacrilege are strictly and radically understood, there is no man who is not guilty of all three,’ writes C. K. Barrett, and reminds us of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount about the thoughts of our hearts.6 But Paul seems to have actions rather than thoughts in mind, and Dodd quotes Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai, a contemporary of Paul’s, who bewailed in his day ‘the increase of murder, adultery, sexual vice, commercial and judicial corruption, bitter sectarian strife, and other evils’.
Paul’s fifth rhetorical question is again more general: You who brag about the law (which the Jews did, see verse 17), do you dishonour God by breaking the law? (23). As it is written, ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you’ (24). This quotation seems to combine Isaiah 52:5 and Ezekiel 36:22. In both texts God’s name had been mocked because his people had been defeated and enslaved. Could Yahweh not protect his own people? Just so, moral defeat, like military defeat, brings discredit on the name of God.
The argument of verses 17–24 is the same in principle as that of verses 1–3, and is just as applicable to us as to first-century critical moralizers and self-confident Jews. If we judge others, we should be able to judge ourselves (1–3). If we teach others, we should be able to teach ourselves (21–24). If we set ourselves up as either teachers or judges of others, we can have no excuse if we do not teach or judge ourselves. We cannot possibly plead ignorance of moral rectitude. On the contrary, we invite God’s condemnation of our hypocrisy.
John R. W. Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 91–92.
CARM wisely adds to the discussion the following:
- It has been said that you must be smaller than the thing you hide behind. Are you hiding behind the hypocrisy of others to keep yourself out of church? You must realize that you are responsible for yourself and God won’t ask others about you on judgment day. He will come to you and ask you to give an account for your life. The hypocrites in the church will also stand before God, with or without you there.
The issue is, what does the person saying there are hypocrites in the church going to do on judgement day? Hopefully none of the following:
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