On Hypocrisy

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteriesa wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

--Matthew 23:1-7

Over the years, I - have- written  - several  -times  - complaining - about the religious right and hypocrisy, and by now I probably should be past the point where it still shocks me.

I should just accept the fact that religious people are hypocrites, and then just move on with my daily life, rather than continue to waste all my time ranting against it.

Hypocrisy in religion has been going on since time immemorial.  2,000 years ago, Jesus noted that all the religious leaders of his day were complete hypocrites.  (I've only quoted a small part of it, but the whole 23rd Chapter of Matthew is one long rant against hypocrisy).  

Others have pointed out before me the irony that Jesus would go on to found a new religion, which would then attract all the same hypocrites that the old religion did.

And yet...watching the Republican National Convention this week, it's hard not to just gag on all the pure hypocrisy coming out.  And so, once again, I'm going to put my fingers on the keyboard and complain about this.

For years we've had to listen to these blowhards on the religious right complain that Obama wasn't Christian enough.  Or that the secularists didn't respect Christian tradition enough.  

And then after all that huffing and puffing, they go ahead and nominate Donald Trump--a man notorious for talking about oral sex with Howard Stern, rating women's bodies, and bragging about his sex life.

The Trump phenomenon is a curious one--smarter people than me have been stumped by it--but apparently during this election year the Republican electorate was swayed by considerations other than religious purity.

Fine...Whatever.  The times change.  I wrote in a previous post that Trump's nomination signaled the Republican Party was evolving into something new.

So I fully expected the nomination of Donald Trump meant that sexual purity would not be an issue this election.  

But instead the Republicans have gone even more extreme on sexual purity, with a platform that denounces all forms of sexual activity not sanctioned by the Church--no same sex marriage, no transgender rights, and pornography is declared a public health issue.

(And understand, when a political party declares pornography a public health issue, that isn't the same as when a private organization does it.  That means they are announcing their intention to use the mechanisms of the government to restrict access to pornography.)

All this, in the same year they nominated a man who had appeared in pornography publications.  

And this is just the tip of hypocrisy ice-berg.  Remember Bristol Palin?

Or Newt Gingrich?

So what's going on?  Samantha Bee made an interesting case a few months ago that the religious right that ideological purity was never important to the religious right--instead it is and always has been about the politics of resentment.  In other words, they just want to hate people who aren't the same as them.  They couldn't care less that their leaders never follow any of their rules.