It's a Strange Badge of Honour

We’ve come a long way from being Pharisees. We don’t stand and proclaim our righteousness, when we know that inside we are just sepulchres full of old man’s bones. Oh, no. We would be shocked at such hypocrisy and maybe even shun someone who was audacious enough to try it.

We don’t try to come off as righteous. We fully and honestly believe that we are sinners, every day—thought, word, deed—and we take a strange pleasure in confessing it. It is as though we wear our sinfulness as a badge of honour; we pin it on our lapel and make sure it stands out. Nobody’s badge is the same colour, of course, but all of them mean the same thing—I am sinful—and we are almost proud of it. We hold our sinfulness very near and dear; and woe be to the man who suggests that we need not wear such a badge.

This situation is a very interesting twist, I think. I can’t call it hypocrisy—it’s not—it’s not claiming to be something we’re not, or acting one way and talking another. It’s quite the opposite; it’s claiming to be something we really believe we are, acting the way we talk. But it’s such a strange way to talk. Because we talk like we would die if we weren’t sinful. Because we talk like it’s a horrible sin to be un-sinful. Because we cling so dearly to the thought that we are sinful, so tightly to the idea that we are hopeless cases.

I find it intriguing in light of the thought that we are (supposedly, anyway) God’s children. Wisdom is justified of her children. Abraham’s children do the works of Abraham. “Ye do the deeds of your father.”

This strange talk evades a name. What should I call it? Can it be honesty? If I call it honesty, what then do we make of what we claim to be, if “the lusts of your father ye will do?” Can it be, perhaps, taking the Lord’s name in vain? We take his name to ourselves, calling ourselves His children—and yet we speak and act as though sinfulness is the most consistent and true trait of our lives.

Secrets

“Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.”
--Lord Acton

When public discussion of a subject is forbidden, it should raise an immediate suspicion in the minds of those who know of the situation.

There is a very good reason that we have a constitutional right to a public trial. When decisions are made in secret, apart from the view of the people who constitute and support the decisions, there arise several problems. First, if the decision is secret, then there can be no appeal to a higher authority, should a party be wronged. Second, if the decision is secret, one of the major motivations for honesty on the parts of all involved is removed: no-one other than the parties present knows what was said, and most importantly, there is no way of factually verifying whether something was or was not said (should it come under dispute). Third, if the decision is secret, there is a direct implication that certain parties do not think that the decision (or the process through which it was reached) or the reasoning behind it will stand the test of public discussion.

“For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”
(John 3:20-21)

“For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”
(Luke 12:2-3)

“No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light.”
(Luke 8:16)

“Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? And who knoweth us?”
(Isaiah 29:15)

If we are truly honest, then we will have no fear of our words or deeds coming to be known by all. It is only if we have some dark deed or dishonest word to hide, that we will be apprehensive about being recorded or publicized.