I recently saw a promo for a documentary accusing some politicians of hypocrisy because they vote against their group. I'm intentionally not going to say what documentary or issue it is addressing because it doesn't matter. I've heard this argument many times: Christians who vote for abortion or against prayer in schools, Latinos who vote against immigration, homosexuals who vote against gay marriage, and the list could go on and on.
There is an assumption that there is one unilateral opinion among a group. As we all should know by now, there isn't. Just because one person is part of a particular group does not mean that they may believe a certain thing or vote a certain way.
That does not mean they are hypocritical. They have found congruency in their beliefs and actions. It is when those two are incongruent that we delve into the realm of hypocrisy. The problem is many people have not found peace in discovering a congruency between struggling beliefs and values they may have. And then they attack others with whom they disagree. This does not help the spirit of dialogue and struggle.
While we may not always understand how a person can hold two values simultaneously (or even understand how we ourselves could do so), we need to have faith that this can occur and not condemn so easily, particularly in such a public setting as a documentary.
There are true-believing Christians who do not think abortion should be illegal or that prayer should occur in public schools. There are Latinos who believe in strict immigration laws and do not support amnesty. There are homosexuals who do not think gay marriage should be an option.
And I doubt any of them would consider themselves hypocritical. We may not always agree, but does that mean they are living incongruously and hypocritically? No, I don't think so. What say you?
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