Goodthink is hypocrisy.

I am not sure who said that hypocrisy is the rent that vice pays to virtue, but there is more than a grain of truth in this. To make our society work we make assumptions. That people will square their own stuff away. That people will be honest. That people are honest. That men will protect the weak and vulnerable.

That we will do our duty, and to a certain extent hypocrisy is useful, because if are honest or protective, we will do good, faking or not. But that does not deal with the evil that lurks within our heart.

Consider for a second the photo (again, from Moeraki). Behind the pretty front of the town are paddocks full of broken boats: the fisheries around the South Island are now regulated, and the fishing quota has gone to the corporate fishing companies.

We all tend to put our pretty front out, and speak the pretty lies, pretend we are goodthinkers.

And here Christ confronts us: as does the Psalmist.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Lament over Jerusalem

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

(Matthew 23:27-39 ESV)

The Faithful Have Vanished

To the choirmaster: according to The Sheminith. A Psalm of David.

Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone;
for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.
Everyone utters lies to his neighbor;
with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

May the LORD cut off all flattering lips,
the tongue that makes great boasts,
those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail,
our lips are with us; who is master over us?”

“Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
I will now arise,” says the LORD;
“I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”
The words of the LORD are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.

You, O LORD, will keep them;
you will guard us from this generation forever.
On every side the wicked prowl,
as vileness is exalted among the children of man.

(Psalm 12 ESV)

Aww, a feel-good story with little basis in reality designed to appeal to Western SWPLs. pic.twitter.com/vV1Uj9JxJX

— Michael Anissimov (@MikeAnissimov) July 8, 2014

I guess I should correct myself. Hypocrisy works in functional societies. In those societies where the correct way of thinking leads to perversion and vice, then this will not happen.

Instead the herd will be encouraged to indulge: to debauch themselves. Telling themselves that this is good, because we are not hypocrites. But this is far worse. The hypocrite knows what he should do and is faking it. But he knows his duty: he is supposed to protect his family, provide for his family, be honest, be courageous, and be faithful to his God and those with whom he is in relationship. He is supposed to do good to all.

And most of us at times have to fake these things.

But the modern elite preach that nothing can be fake except our tans, which must be fake: that all things are socially constructed, and to say otherwise is sexist, racist, offends intersectionality or generally offends their all to sensitive feelings.

But gravity does not care.

The front page of today’s New Zealand Herald: “Storm chaos” http://t.co/EXIJ8U5jQd pic.twitter.com/RXNV0AoBpw

— nzherald (@nzherald) July 8, 2014

Neither do the various pathogens that inflict humanity: if we fall, we will feel pain (if lucky). And if we do not use prevention strategies such as immunization, we will see just how much damage illnesses such as rubella can do, needlessly. Far better to read the accounts of a mother’s pain from the time before the vaccine than deal with the child who is now deaf and blind because they were not immunized… and don’t get be started on the other diseases we can now do something about if we use the technologies we have.

Within the church, we have to confess our sins, and be real with one another. We all have faults, and we all need support. Within the church, we have to do good, regardless of how we feel, and regardless of who the person is.

But doing good is not nice. It is confrontational. Christ is trying to get the Pharisees to hear: so some (like Paul, who discusses the issue of Israel in Romans 9 — see the daily link) will be saved. For he knows the Maccabean kingdom is failing, and those who put their hope on Jerusalem will be devastated.

God did not spare Israel. We should not delude ourselves. When Israel rejected Christ, the nation was destroyed for 1800 years. We are goyim, gentiles. We are not the heirs of the older covenant, but by the blood of Christ. And if we reject that, no pretence will spare us from the natural consequence: our society will rot, and our nations will be destroyed.