Signs of the Times

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

From the editorial
"Hypocrisy Can Be Inverted" in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Lubbock, Texas

Dr. Elton Trueblood once dubbed the attitudes of many in this generation as "inverted hypocrisy." ... Instead of pretending to be better than he is, the person appears to be more worldly. Such a person wants to hide his virtues, says Doctor Trueblood. He would rather be called smart or a real fellow—but not holy!

And even those whose outraged sense of decency sometimes cries out against what impresses them as demonstrations of vulgarity, or ultra-sophistication, or downright evil, often are reluctant to say what they think for fear that they will be considered "squares," or Puritans.

The great fear of modern man, it appears, is that he will be accused of nonconformity. Not all are afflicted with this fear, of course but too many are.... And when a decent individual attempts to prove that lie is worse than he actually is, he is just as much a hypocrite as the ancient Pharisee who claimed to be better than he was.... It is the duty of every God-fearing and law-abiding person to speak out against evil wherever it exists, whether in the realm of individual, national or world morality.

In this day, when the ancient moral laws are being widely flouted, ... some people justify their infractions of the moral precepts on the grounds that others are violating these rules and getting by with it. Then they adopt the convenient idea that anything is all right if you can get by with it. The end product of such thinking is the destruction of the moral code. An individual or a society which seeks to rationalize immorality has no morality.

And the person who dares stand up against the modern trend has no reason to apologize for doing so. Civilization has been carried forward on the shoulders of those who have dared to resist the popular trend, if that trend happened to be evil. And if civilization is rescued from the morass into which it has fallen, it will be accomplished by those who dare to speak out against what they believe to be wrong, even though they may make themselves unpopular by doing so.

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