Hypocrisy

I was just reading an article on WorldNedDaily about the hypocrisy of the Hollywood left. The headline item is about how Michael Moore says he owns no stock but that he actually owns tens of thousands of shares of stock including Halliburton. Some of the other items, reprtined here:

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who proclaims her support for unions, yet the luxury resort, the vineyard and the restaurants she partly owns are strictly non-union. While she advocates tough new laws enforcing environmental regulations on the private sector, the exclusive country club she partly owns failed to comply with existing environmental regulations for the past eight years – including a failure to protect endangered species.
• Noam Chomsky has made a reputation for calling America a police state and branding the Pentagon "the most hideous institution on earth," yet his entire academic career, writes Schweizer, has been subsidized by the U.S. military.
• Barbra Streisand is another proponent of environmentalism, yet she drives an SUV, lives in a mansion and has a $22,000 annual water bill. In the past, she has driven to appointments in Beverly Hills in a motor home because of her aversion to using public bathrooms.
• Ralph Nader plays the role of the citizen avenger – the populist uninterested in wealth and materialism, pretending to live in a modest apartment. In fact, he lives in fancy homes registered in the names of his siblings.

There are those who criticize the Christian Church for being full of hypocrites. The truth of the matter is that churches are indeed full of hypocrites - I'm one of them. The difference between the hypocrites in the Church and the hypocrites in Hollywood is that mature Christians and healthy congregations recognize their hypocrisy and desire to rid themselves of it because it is a poor witness for Christ. There may be some in Hollywood who have repented as such, but by and large this is not the case.

Oddly many who criticize the Church for its hypocricy worship at the altars of the silver screen and the boob tube. They fail to recognize their own hypocricy. Instead, I suggest they delude themselves in order to find an excuse to not give up what they mistakenly believe are the more enjoyable things in life. Such things fail to satisfy human longing for security in our relationships. The only one who can satisfy this longing is the One who created social relationships in the first place...and He's no hypocrite.