Hyprocrisy
Posted on November 16th, 2007 by kyrie
As defined in Merriam-Webster:
HYPOCRISY: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.
The people in this country where am living right now has a lot of it to offer but not all in a way that what we might understood hypocrisy would be. Hypocrisy comes in a lot of forms in this strange culture. But honestly, I am in a dilemma if I will look at them as hypocrite or just being more considerate. It put a lot of strain on my mind trying to comprehend their actions; a situation where I don’t encounter everyday in my country. Oh how I missed Cebu. Eventually, I found a better way to avoid this unnecessary mental and emotional strain by not trying to fit into their culture. I can always look like a Japanese but I can never be one, thus the cliche’ “turning Japanese” can only do me more harm than good. So the hard part of living in Japan comes not with the real Japanese but with Gaijin ”turning Japanese”.
But hypocrisy in the context of culture is nothing compared to hypocrisy applied to the Christian living. This I think is probably the best way for somebody claiming to be a good Christian to get in somebody’s nerves; and the best way of keeping people away from the faith. I have seen people and certainly knew people of this kind and I always dread the moment I’m with them. But here comes the trick. What am I also to other people? Am I as hypocrite to them as I would think other people are? These are just some of the few questions in Christian faith that I want to address ASAP.
Do you call it hypocrisy when you’re trying to hide your hate to somebody because the Bible says, “Love your enemies”? Do you call it hyprocrisy when you’re trying to put a smile on your face while holding your blood from boiling over in front of people who qualifies to be the best jerk in the world because the bible tells us “to live in harmony”? Mind you, these are questions not from somebody who doubted his faith in the words of God in the Bible. But these questions comes from somebody who is trying to be as close, if not emulate the life of a Christian as define in the Bible. Our hypocrisy is magnified in the eyes of somebody with the same faith. It can make us transparent and that it is in vain for us to hide it because we are measured with the same scale. Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin.
I am not a good man myself, not by many people’s standard, and certainly not by God’s standard. Thus, reading and understanding the bible exposes my short-comings. In effect, I can at least superficially be able to asses a person’s actions whether they are acting in love or just plain hypocrite. I will not claim that I’m good at reading people but it’s just because I’ve been there and have done that. I was once in this Bible study and at one point a question was asked, “In what way Christians can bring unnecessary criticisms to themselves?”. For me Christians bring criticisms to themselves by not acting in sync. What I mean by this is that every Christians are claiming to have the right kind of faith or practices and so in the eyes of non-believers there are two sheeps in different clothing. Everybody thinks they are spreading the faith by telling stories about it changing their lives but at the expense of their Christian brothers. Did you get my point? I think not, so here’s another basic example. As clearly mentioned in the Bible in Romans 14:17 ”For the kingdom of God is not of food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”. Now, I will rest my case with this verse. Some Christian drinks wine, liquor, beer, whatever you call it because it’s rooted to their culture or just plainly business. Of course everything in excess is a higway to sin thus drinking, short of being drunk, is clearly a bookable offense. In the bible, drinking wine is not prohibited (am sure about it) but being drunk is. Now then, when one Christian claims that a true Christian doesn’t drink wine in any form when the other Christian drinks because of the reason stated above, aren’t they bringing upon them unnecessary cristicism? One can consider this situation the other way around and still it will yield the same result in the eyes of non-believers. Can we call this hypocrisy? Clearly God judges the heart, men judges by sight. So why should each one claim in the presence of non-believers that they are correct in their own way. Why can’t we keep our mouth shut and walk the talk and let God be the judge of us all. Making ourselves as a measuring scale to the faith of our fellow Christian is hyprocrisy, and it can’t get any clearer than that.
Maybe my definition of hypocrisy is far fetched or too shallow but it’s the closest word I can think of that defines some of the practices of the people adhering to the Christian faith.
