Hypocrisy

Last month another hypocrite bit the dust.

The Reverend Ted Haggard, who is married with five children and fought for a ban on same-sex marriage, was terminated as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church, based in Colorado. He also resigned as the president of the National Evangelical Association, which influences some 30 million Christians. He admitted, “I am guilty of sexual immorality,” after a male prostitute went public that he was engaged in homosexual relations with Haggard for three years.

He joins many other public figures whose actions belie what they profess to believe. The Reverend Jesse Jackson took advantage of the media storm that surrounded Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal to offer the President moral counseling. Jackson brought along staffer Karin Stanford, who was visibly pregnant at the time with the child he fathered. To cover up his “little error,” the reverend arranged for his mistress to live in a home valued at $345,000, and paid her $10,000 per month from organizational money.

Former Secretary of Education, William Bennett, authored The Book of Virtues, and received as much as $50,000 in speaking fees to address conservative groups on the moral issues that America faced. He was one of the biggest critics during former President Clinton’s “moral failure.” However, he later admitted to losing more than $8 million in casino gambling, which put the money in the pockets of the people he criticized. Bennett denied that he was a hypocrite because he did not claim to be a moral authority; however, he also said he did not have a gambling problem.

Other inductees into the Hypocrites’ Hall of Shame include Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Mark Foley (R-FL), Jack Abramoff’s lobbying cronies Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), former Congressmen Tom DeLay (R-TX); and we could go on ad infinitum with a list of people who say one thing in public, but do another. The world is full of them.

Today’s scandals resonate more deeply because they are enmeshed in a tapestry of political and social crisis. All corporate ethical corruptions, political opportunism, illegal payoffs, and moral hypocrisy are seen as part of a culture of lies, selfishness and greed.

A hypocrite is defined as somebody who gives a false appearance of having admirable principles, beliefs, or feelings. Most people would like their public face to be admired while they rationalize their private lie. Perhaps you and I have stepped into the “actor’s” shoes at one time or another.

One of the major problems caused by hypocritical leaders is that they allow average people to justify their moral frailties. People can use rational-lies to rationalize wrong doings, because in comparison it may seem minor to them when judged against the major failings of a moral leader. Also, by easily dismissing the faults of a high-profile public leader, we can easily excuse our own failings, and if continued it will lower the standards and weaken the foundation of a strong moral culture until it becomes easy to rationalize any scandalous behavior using situational ethics. Sodom and Gomorrah, after all, had few hypocrites.

Having a moral code to live by is essential to maintain high ethical standards. If your beliefs are in harmony with your actions then your hypocrisy score would equal zero. In other words, if (Beliefs = X) and also (Actions = X), then Beliefs – Actions = 0 Hypocrisy. When a person’s hypocrisy score equals anything other than zero, it creates anxiety and an imbalance that can last only seconds for the rationalizers, or disturb an honest objective person for years. Ted Haggard offered a glimpse of the anxiety caused by his battle from within when he stated: “There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.”

People have a natural tendency to keep their hypocrisy at zero, so they have a desire to keep their beliefs and actions equal. Some will do it by changing their beliefs so that they are equal to their actions; however, you should focus on changing your actions so that they are equal to your beliefs.

Also, have high expectations of those who are in a position of leadership and let them know you will not accept a double standard. Expect their conduct to be in line with the laws, code of ethics, and principles that everyone else is judged by. Stay strong and do not lower your standards because of doomsday economic predictions by pundits (i.e. gambling casinos on Saipan as the savior for our economic woes). May our actions always be consistent with high moral beliefs and standards so that our friends and followers will not accuse us of hypocrisy.

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[I] Rik is a business instructor at Northern Marianas College and Janel is the owner of Positively Outrageous Results. They can be contacted at: biz_results@yahoo.com
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