Albert Mohler: Morality, Hollywood Style

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Moral hypocrisy is an ugly thing, regardless of its source. Hypocrisy is a moral trap of constant threat -- the price of holding any moral standards at all. To hold to the truth of moral judgment and then to allow for the transgression of that moral judgment is hypocrisy in its essence. The only total escape from the threat of hypocrisy is to forfeit any claim to moral standards at all.

Hypocrisy is found in ample supply among both conservatives and liberals. The conservative variant seems most evident when political or religious leaders are found guilty of transgressing the very principles they preach. The hypocrisy spreads in both extent and significance when those who claim to be conservatives attempting to conserve moral wisdom excuse those who flaunt their personal disregard for that wisdom.

The liberal variant seems most evident when, for example, moral relativists all of the sudden discover moral scruples. It turns out that even postmodern relativists and the children of the 1960s do believe in moral principles after all. Yet, the cultural left has always found sexual morality most difficult to define or defend. the rest