Decision Time

To save life, or to kill (3:4)

'Which is lawful' Jesus asks, 'to do good or to do evil?'. In their response it's clear the Pharisees haven't had any political training. Rather than answering a different question at great length, they simply remain silent. I came across this phenomenon of 'enhanced hypocrisy' quite recently in a brilliant podcast called Americast. The interviewers were asking an American Republican politician about the disputed election and whether he now accepted that Joe Biden had won the election. His reply commented that a large number of the electorate remained concerned about the reliability of the election. When the interviewer noted this was not an answer to the question, that there had been 60 failed court cases, and there was no evidence whatsoever of fraud, and pointed out his responsibility as a leader to guide a mistaken electorate, he noted that there had been disputes about how the election was run. When the interviewer noted this was not an answer to the question... well you get the drift. He was properly caught out once though: he hadn't spotted that the indescribably unhinged Marjorie Taylor Greene had failed to revoke her call to shoot three opposition politicians, and even he couldn't bring himself to pretend it was okay, falling into the rather lame, 'I thought she had said that'. Given the opportunity to do good or evil, possibly even to save life or kill, he decided to keep his job, to further his career, to avoid the risk of speaking the truth. Rather than condemn, I wondered how tempting would it be to do the same. He has invested his whole life's work in the Republican party and in his career as a politician. To speak out would lose him his job and possibly worse, and gain nothing except a few headlines that would be gone in a day. Who can blame him? And yet of such decisions are good lives made. I wonder when my next one will be.



Comments

  1. Kathy8 February 2021 at 12:21

    Thankyou George. I was only thinking along these lines just last week, and with respect to America as well. I call it diverting one's mind or avoiding or circumventing the real question being asked. We all do it to a smaller or larger extent, I guess. But we don't like it done to us, do we? Interesting thoughts. Kathy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. George Moody8 February 2021 at 15:28

      Quite. And sad that our politicians are trained to do it. Or more accurately trained to say what they've been briefed to say whatever the question.

      Delete

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