When I was younger, religious people pretty much had the corner on moral hypocrisy. At least as society saw it. If you wanted to know what a hypocrite looked like, you went to church. And some of that reputation was earned. We weren't always very loving towards the sorts of people who didn't conform to our image of loveliness. You know, basically the people Jesus called us to love. Like the delegation of Christians who came from James in Jerusalem and put pressure on Peter to start to withdraw from table fellowship with the Gentile Christians, we were quick to point out the moral and cultural failings of others.

Fast-forward to the 2020s and I feel like, finally, society has caught up with us. Overtaken us, even! No longer do we have the corner on hypocrisy and moral bullying. Both cultural conservatives and progressives are very good at condemning and cancelling anyone who doesn't fit their conception of moral virtue. And it's not enough to act with charity towards others, you have to agree with the dominant ideology in their group.

It's almost like looking into a mirror. Hmmm.

And yet Christians are called to live virtuous lives. In Galatians 2:11-21 we read about some of the early Jewish Christians in Jerusalem for whom this meant ongoing conformity to the Torah Law. But the apostles Paul and Peter knew that a different standard now attained for the Christian. It wasn't based on external conformity to a set of rules but a death to self through Christ's death, and internal conformity to Christ through a life-giving relationship with him. Peter got into hot water when he started to give into those who wanted to live by conformity to the rules rather than through the life of Christ that was in him.

In other words, it is all of grace, and that doesn't leave a lot of room for either hypocrisy or bullying.