When the (Self)Righteous Fall

What does it mean when the self-appointed defenders of righteousness are shown up as hypocrites?

This week in ickyness we have the case of Roy Moore, Alabama Republican nominee for the United States Senate and former chief justice of that states Supreme Court. To date, at least five women have accused Moore of seeking to exploit them sexually while they were teens and he was the district attorney for Etowah County, Alabama. Moore, it must be said, denies the accusations. And he has countless defenders. But last night we learned Moore had been banned from the local shopping mall back in the day because he hung out there to prey on underage women. His behavior was common knowledge , according to Alabama newspapers. (You cant make this stuff up.)

Moore accrued fame and power as a public defender of the Christian Right. He is the founder and president of the Foundation for Moral Law. Having won election to the Alabama Supreme Court, Moore surprised his colleagues by installing a Ten Commandments monument of his own design into the Heflin-Torbert Judicial Building. When Moore defied a federal judges order to remove the monument, he was removed from his Supreme Court seat. That was the first time.

Having run twice for governor of Alabama, Moore again won a seat on the state Supreme Court in 2012. When he instructed Alabama judges to ignore a U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, Moore was again removed from his seat. Hes also on record as claiming homosexual acts should be illegal.

Moore welcomed his reputation for righteousness. He campaigned on the premise that the Bible overrules federal law. He even autographs Bibles upon request. So its no wonder his defenders have appealed to the Bible to justify then 30-something Moores dating relationship with a 14 year-old. Mary might have been 14 herself.

Alabamians have been through this before. Former governor Robert Bentley also represented himself as a representative of Christian values. Bentleys life blew wide open when his wife recorded his phone conversation with another lover who also served as his communications director. The two met in a Sunday School class taught by Bentley . (I said, you cant make this stuff up.) News of the affair eventually forced Bentley to resign. He also pled guilty to financial crimes.

We are no longer surprised when those who speak loudest concerning sexual propriety are exposed as sinners in their own right. On many occasions LGBT friends have told me that their most vocal haters are often closeted themselves. I was slow to believe, but Im coming around. Research documents that relatively homophobic men respond more positively to gay porn than do less homophobic men. By now I suspect that the most zealous guardians of sexual purity often have something to hide themselves.

The Gospels knew something about people whose collar and cuffs dont quite match. Get your mind out of the gutter! I mean those people whose behavior fails to fit their preaching. According to Matthews Gospel Jesus respected the religious authority of the Pharisees. Although he tangles with the Pharisees throughout the book, he recognizes the legitimacy of their teaching.

The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. Therefore do whatever they tell you, and observe it. But dont do what they do, because they dont practice what they teach. (23:2-3, NRSV)

Its a funny thing about Jesus. He directs some harsh words towards people who proclaim their own righteousness. Indeed, theyre the only ones he criticizes directly. (Jesus sometimes uses the Gentiles as a negative point of comparison, as in Mark 10:42.) When it comes to real sinners , the kinds of people everyone recognizes as morally corrupt, Jesus takes a different tack. He parties with them. Indeed, its the righteous who complain about the company Jesus keeps (Matthew 11:19; Mark 2:16; Luke 15:1-2).

Yes, Jesus tells one man to stop sinning but nothing in the story indicates the man is particularly sinful (John 5:14). And theres the deuterocanonical story of the woman caught in adultery. Jesus tells her to Go and sin no more, but this story is a later addition to Johns Gospel (John 7:53-8:11). Remarkably, we have no stories in which Jesus calls out sinners for their specific sins. But he goes very hard on the righteous and the secure.

Jesus behavior toward sinners leads me to wonder why any Christian would advance himself or herself as a paragon of virtue. Hell, Im afraid to put a religious message on my car. Next thing you know, Id cut someone off in traffic, justifying their opinion that religious people are just hypocrites. Sure enough, Too many Christians doing un-Christian things ranks high on the list of reasons many people reject the church . So does the anti-gay rhetoric we hear from too many churches.

Despite their pretensions, we should not rejoice when folks like Moore and Bentley have their hypocrisy put on public display. Im not claiming Im above sharing that feeling, but we all know the reality. We all have our faults. Every one of us has stories wed rather protect from the world. I recall words spoken by my great professor of pastoral care Wayne C. Oates: Dont think youre above it. Gods mercy abounds for everyone, the publicly disgraced and those of us who enjoy privacy alike. And what hope would we have apart from Gods grace?

One final note. Most historians believe the Pharisees get an unfair rap from the Gospels. In the Gospels they usually appear as Jesus opponents, bent on humiliating or doing away with him. But their ancient reputation was more positive. Paul, for example, boasts of his Pharisaic background (Philippians 3:5). One contemporary, Josephus, tells us the Pharisees enjoyed popular admiration and were kind toward one another (Antiquities 18.12-15).