The New Hypocrisy
By Rev Dr Ian Stackhouse, Guildford
Hypocrisy is a charge used most often of professions like mine: clergy who present a strong religious faith but who betray it by living a duplicitous life. Sadly, there have been enough scandals emanating from the Christian community in recent years to support the accusation. Indeed, there seems little else in the media these days but shocking revelations concerning yet another Christian leader. In wanting to offer my own thoughts about this matter of hypocrisy, I am not about to minimise the seriousness of the situation the church faces. Jesus reserved some of his most stinging words for the religious leaders of his own day whom he described as ‘whitewashed tombs’: that is, outwardly clean but inwardly corrupt. [1] In the current crisis that the church faces, those uncompromising words need to be heard. What I do want to draw our attention to, however, is a new kind of hypocrisy that is at large in our culture - a secular hypocrisy, if you will - every bit as Pharisaic about what it wants to uphold; and every bit as contradictory, shamelessly so it appears to me, about what it ends up doing. And no, I am not talking about extreme progressivism (otherwise known as ‘woke’). That is a very particular and clever kind of hypocrisy. I am simply referring to popular mainstream culture which, on the one hand, pillories anyone who even unintentionally wanders outside its strict code of conduct, but, on the other hand, typically in the name of freedom of expression, openly violates its own brand of puritanism when it suits.
Let me offer an example: this year’s Brit Pop awards - or Brat awards as they are now known given the accolades placed on Charlie XCX. Maybe I am missing a trick here, and maybe I shouldn’t have been looking, but in what way does this pageantry of nudity and explicit sexual costuming (of the most stereotypical if not misogynist kind in the case of Sabrina Carpenter’s lingerie) [2] equate with the puritanical savagery that the media have adopted in recent years over those who have been found guilty of this kind of sexualisation. It’s difficult for a male to say this, without being misunderstood, but am I the only one who thinks there are double standards at play?
We shall see in a few years’ time, with the advantage of hindsight, that this year’s Brit Pop Awards ceremony is yet another boundary crossed in what is regarded as being socially acceptable. People talk about broadcasting watersheds, or different media platforms for different things, but everybody knows deep down that those things are meaningless. The truth is, sexual images are ubiquitous, and they have become ever more explicit. And regarding the standards that our mainstream institutions say they abide by, this sexualisation of prime-time television, available to young people (Love Island being the most obvious example), constitutes, in my opinion, hypocrisy of the highest order. Indeed, to lambast sexual misdemeanours, as the media does, which includes a most unforgiving level of social ostracism, and then to celebrate sexual promiscuity (not to mention linguistic vulgarity) as an advance of personal liberty, is about as vivid an example of cognitive dissonance as you might find. In other words, it just doesn’t make sense. It is defended on the grounds of self-expression and the fact that nobody is being coerced, which I suppose in many cases is true. But what this approach fails to take account of is the incremental slide into degeneracy once there is no moral yardstick - the antics of Bonnie Blue on OnlyFans being possibly the most shocking. [3] The illustration of frogs in boiling water come to mind. ‘Was this the sexiest Brit awards ever?’ asks one tabloid. I don’t know. I haven’t ever watched them. But to not even think the question a disturbing one is symptomatic in my opinion of a culture that has forgotten how to blush. [4] At least with hypocrisy there is shame. As Francois de La Rochefoucauld put it in Maxims: ‘hypocrisy is an homage that vice pays to virtue.’ [5] And in so far as religious figures are shamed by the exposure of their sins, then, in a strange kind of way, there is hope. But this stuff is without shame. In a sense it goes beyond hypocrisy, except of course that it masquerades behind an unforgiving self-righteousness.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the promiscuity was presented simply for what it was. As strange as it sounds, there is something quite honest about sin that is unapologetically sin. Sinning like a sinner is, after all, the prelude to salvation. But this is not that. This is a culture that offers the veneer of respectability, mimics conventionality, but in reality, is as perverse as the incidents of misconduct it vilifies. Hence, an Oscar nominated film about a female CEO, played by Nicole Kidman, who submits, quite literally, to the sexual endeavours of a male intern. Again, maybe I’m missing the point (the trailer of Babygirl is all I managed), but not only am I thinking ‘What is one of the best actors of my generation doing in such a movie?’, I’m also puzzled as to how a film about male sexual dominance, if not predation, can be heralded in a culture that has made this kind of behaviour something akin to the unforgivable sin. As far as I can work out, the whole thing is justified on the basis that the affair kicks life back into a marriage and releases what has almost transcendent status in our secular age: namely, orgasm. According to the criterion of hedonism, that’s okay. Meantime, however, the audience is required to suspend its code of conduct, laugh at the sexual manipulation of power dynamics, dismiss its adherence to safeguarding, all under the guise of entertainment. Presumably that is how such a film makes its way to the Oscars: it’s just entertainment. In any other context, however, all kinds of red flags would be raised. And therein lies the problem: the lack of consistency, which is symptomatic of the loss of integrity, leading inevitably to a new kind of hypocrisy.
The antidote to this new hypocrisy is not some kind of political theocracy. Personally, I would hate that, not least because it would represent a misunderstanding of the place of the church in the world. As an orthodox believer I am quite happy to live in a pluralistic society. I just wish those who expose hypocrisy in the church would also take a good look at the hypocrisy that is now at large in culture and media. It’s not difficult to spot, and in many ways it is just as disturbing.
The views and opinions expressed above are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Jubilee Centre or its trustees.
[1] Matthew 23:27
[2] The cover of her new album Man’s Best Friend showing her in a sexually submissive pose is seen by many, even by feminists, as regressive and demeaning of women.
[3] See the disturbing article by Louise Perry, ‘Why OnlyFans has young British women in its grip’ in The Spectator, 14 June 2025.
[4] Jeremiah 6:15.
[5] Cited in Cornelius Plantinga: Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995, 96.
