The charge of hypocrisy is often leveled at those in public positions of leadership who fail to live out their beliefs. We can think of Ted Haggart in the church and Larry Craig in congress. Both leaders acted in ways that differed from their professed beliefs. The bible of course cautions us about hypocrisy. Both the writer of Proverbs in the Old Testament and James in the New warn us about “double-mindedness.” We should be concerned about hypocrisy in our lives and seek to root it out wherever we find it.
But at the same time, the public outrage against hypocrisy is over the top at times. I got to thinking that we could categorize people with respect to belief and action. There are those who have true beliefs and true action. Let’s call them T/T (True belief/True action). Then there are hypocrites like Ted Haggart. They have true belief and false action. We could label them T/F (True belief/False action). But there is a third category. There are those who have false belief and false action. We could label them as F/F (False belief/False action).
If you accept my general categories, isn’t it true that a person in the T/F category is still better off than someone in the F/F category? For example, if a Christian professes belief that he should pray, and he does, then he is a T/T believer and should be commended. If a Christian professes belief in prayer, but doesn’t pray, he is a T/F Christian and should be encouraged to make his belief match his practice. But if your average person on the street doesn’t believe in prayer and doesn’t pray (making him an F/F), why does he have the moral authority to judge the T/F as a hypocrite? Isn’t he in the worst position of all three?
We should point out that all Christians will have some level of hypocrisy in their lives. All of us are fallen, and all of us are in a process of growth, trying to match our practices to our beliefs. We are continually hindered in this process by our fallen nature. During this season of Lent, ask God to root out hypocrisy that you might become a T/T. Pray also that God would soften the F/Fs in your life, that they might see true belief as at least the first step towards God.
