Everybody’s an inconsistent hypocrite. At least, that’s the lesson the internet is teaching us in 2018. (In case we hadn’t learned it from Scripture already.) I’m referring, of course, to the ever-present (and much commented-on) practice of hypocrisy-juking and various forms of whataboutism.

I was struck by it once again yesterday, when a number of conservative friends began to (correctly) point out the relative silence of progressive Evangelical bloggers and commentators on the failure of Congress to pass the ban on elective abortions at 20-weeks, when the child in question can obviously feel pain.

Now, this shouldn’t have been hard to pass nor to condemn and lament. It’s not a radically pro-life position on the matter. Most progressive European countries don’t allow the practice to be elective that late; the US is in the company of only seven other countries with abortion regimes as permissive as ours, including China and North Korea.

What was striking to my conservative friends was that you’ll frequently find progressive Evangelicals loudly (and perhaps rightly) arguing for various other policy measures (single-payer, immigration reform) along the lines of being holistically, or truly Pro-Life, and then decrying Congressional failure to act on these policies, and Evangelicals for failing to support them.

And yet, when it comes to a policy that is directly and indisputably Pro-Life? Crickets. One wonders why.

Maybe everybody was just focused on other issues that day? Or perhaps, given the increasingly tribal way we engage in moral outrage, there was a fear on the part of newly Progressive Evangelicals at offending or alienating their new-found allies on other issues of great moral concern? Is it a desire to avoid being perceived as one of those Pro-Lifers? The kind they left behind with the rest of their small-minded bigotry? Most cynically, perhaps they don’t care about pro-life anymore at all and simply use the language to engage Evangelicals on their issues of real concern.

Maybe Richard Beck has a point in warning his own tribe of progressives about just turning into Democrats the way conservative Evangelicals became knee-jerk Republicans.

Now, if you’re a conservative Evangelical of a certain sort, these last few paragraphs may have given you a nice, warm sense of satisfaction inside. I could suggest many reasons for it, but one might be the sheer relief of seeing someone other than the conservative Evangelical leaders who have been beclowning themselves in a Carnivalesque fashion through series of attempts to justify President Trump’s various gaffes and sins being called out. The list of cynical justifications, hypocritical back-tracking, willful blindness, and cowardly silences is truly cringe-inducing. Volumes could be written on the failure of moral voices in 2017 alone.

The point is, we could play the, “If Obama had said…” and “If Bush had done…” and “If Clinton had been…” game until the cows come home and we could all be right about someone. And more importantly, someone could probably be right about us.

Which brings me back around again to the broader question of hypocrisy-juking. Why do we engage in it? Also, are there proper uses for it? If so, how? And how ought we respond to it?

On the first question, I can think of a few reasons.

First, it’s just satisfying to take your ideological enemies down a peg. This is especially the case if you see them as prone to a specific kind of preening self-righteousness and grandstanding, with little self-reflection or humility. Catching out their inconsistencies can assure you of their basic wrongness and your basic rightness.

Connected to this, it can be a way of assuaging your own conscience for your own inconsistencies. You may not state it this way, but the basic tu quoque can be a rationalization: everybody does it. Look! They do it too.

More nobly, you may actually be interested in issuing a moral warning. Some people are actually interested in dialoguing and arguing with a principled opposition. You may see someone you disagree with and respect generally, falling into the sort of self-justifying hypocrisy, or an inconsistency born of moral cowardice and a need to fit the tribe, and feel the need to reach out and warn them to avoid it. Now, this can turn into concern-trolling fairly quickly, but I have seen it done (and had it done to me) in good faith.

Finally, and this is an extension of the last point, you may actually be interested in persuasion. Instead of just pushing people down a peg, you may desire to convince them to change their mind on a particular issue given their historic stance, or their stated principles elsewhere. In which case, something like hypocrisy-juking may be in order. (One thinks of Jesus grilling the Pharisees for tithing mint and dill for neglecting the weightier matters of the law, despite adhering rigidly to the minor ones.)

I think we can already see that in these last two reasons, we some place for it. But in the case of persuasion and warning, the act of pointing out hypocrisy and inconsistency ceases to be an act of “juking.” The moral intention, the heart behind it, transforms the act into one of righteous and (in the end) loving exposure and correction.

The last two questions, I think, are caught up with one another and are answered in Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount:

Why do you see 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,’ when there is the log 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. (Matt. 7:3-5)

Only the person who is committed to removing the plank from their own eye, to rigorously pursuing intellectual and moral integrity in their own life and thought, will be suited to attempt to remove the speck from their brother’s. This, both because they are now seeing more clearly, and also because one of the things they see more clearly is their own sin, corruption, and guilt in the matter. This leads to a humble heart not set on vengeance or the vindication of their own name and tribe.

But, of course, in order to be this person, you must be prepared to accept your brother’s help in removing the plank from your eye as well!

All of which is to say, when tempted to point out the hypocrisy in an opponent’s position, check yourself in the matter first. You may quickly find the self-righteousness drained from your stinging remarks. Which, ironically enough, means you’ll be more likely to frame them in a way that people on the other side will hear them.

On the flipside, the wise accept rebuke and become wiser still (Prov. 9:8-9). And this, even from harsh or bad-faith critics. It may be that you know someone is critiquing you just to take you down a peg or to protect themselves. Before you write them off as a fool, ask yourself, “But do they have a point?” If so, correct it. If they have a point, they have a point.

Correct it because it is right, but also, the next time someone tries to critique you along those lines, you can actually be confident it is wrong. Indeed, you may even be able to share the way you have changed and that may be a model for your interlocutor.

Growth in grace here is difficult, and I don’t think for a moment I have this down. Still, given the toxicity of the cultural moment, one of the greatest ways to witness to the forgiveness, mercy, and transforming power of the gospel in our lives is to manifest it in our humble struggle for integrity.

Because the reality is, our greatest resource in any of this is in letting go of our sinful attempts at self-justification because we know by the witness of the Holy Spirit we have justified in Christ.

Maybe take some time now to log off and meditate on that.

Soli Deo Gloria