Prigs exist and they have always existed. Karl du Frense gives the natural reaction to today’s DomPost
For now, the Greens can take the moral high ground on virtually everything because they have never been exposed to the pressures of office and the compromises it demands.
They are unencumbered by previous form in government and have no shoddy record to defend.
They are as pure as they would like our lakes and rivers to be.
I find their self-righteousness tiresome at times. Co-leader Metiria Turei can appear particularly smug. I relish the thought of their self-assurance melting if and when the heat goes on.
The self righteous at present are the politically correct. Within the church, they are the religiously correct. They are the people who hold a double standard, fully aware of their own self righteousness, as Deti points out.
Christianity in America (at least the mainline Protestant denominations) is largely run by women, for women and children. Men are pushed to the sidelines. Scripture is misinterpreted to hold women to lenient, divorce-friendly standards and men to more stringent, higher standards.
Most importantly, churches and their members almost always presume that if a marriage is in trouble, it must be because the husband is in the wrong, has done something wrong, or is otherwise somehow at fault for causing the problems. PromiseKeepers and other men’s “movements” within American Christianity reinforce this, with exhortations to men to “love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her”. But there is no concomitant exhortation to women to respect their husbands. Nor is there any consequence for wives for disobedience to Paul’s instruction. OTOH the consequences for husbands are dire: marital discord. The divorce meat grinder. No involvement in children’s lives.
Now the text for today includes a confrontation of this. We forget that the Pharisees and Sadducees (who were the party of the chief priests and elders) were intelligent, passionate for the law, and dealing with a society that was occupying them. They were holding to religion because the pressure from pagans to conform with their laxer standards was huge.
23When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” 27So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
28“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29He answered, ‘I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. 30The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir'; but he did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
Ain’t hyperbole. We are no better than the people we look down on. When we see the homeless, we should be muttering there but for the grace of God… As we should for people in the sex trade, the men who are imprisoned because they cannot make their child support payments, the unemployed, the mad, and the despairing. We may not be overly criminal but we hold our sins tightly — as Paul said, he may have not lusted, stolen and murdered, but he coveted.
There is thus no place for self righteousness in the church. Nor is there a place for politically correct double standards. We have all fallen. We all need Christ.
Therefore neither be a snob nor a prig. And if you think you are not capable of this, you probably are one.
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