Should hypocritical ministers be called out?

 

In past years, I've heard some say that hypocritical and even disbelieving ministers should not be criticized since they carry on a public ministry that preaches the correct thing. These preachers do this to avoid scrutiny while gathering a small group of disbelievers, but play the role of a godly minister on a larger scale.

What is truly amazing is that they cite the Apostle Paul in support! They refer to Philippians 1:15-18. Here, Paul rejoices that people are coming to salvation through some jealous preachers that really just want to end Paul’s ministry. And so people told me that we should just keep our mouths shut since the good outweighs the bad. In fact, we should just rejoice that people are being saved like Paul did! This level of confusion and irrationality is truly fascinating to me. I’m honestly trying to understand it. How is it that you miss the obvious?

You are seeing the Bible only as something people read. After all, that is all it has been for all of our lives. You’re forgetting that it was also written. Let’s set the scene a little bit. Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians as a thank you letter. He was in prison. In the Roman empire, people were not imprisoned as punishment. Prison was for awaiting trial which was primarily a privilege of the rich. Therefore, you were expected to provide your own basic needs while in prison. The Philippian church had sent Paul food and perhaps some other things. Paul refers to their gift without specifying what it is. The recipients of the letter would have known what it was, but we don’t.

Do you see where I’m going with this? WE only know about these hypocritical preachers from circa 50 AD because Paul literally called them out in this letter! This wasn’t a private email. The Philippian church didn’t sign a non disclosure agreement. By the way, it appears modern churches are using that type of contract at alarming rates to cover things up. This was a letter of instruction for the entire church. This church was in a major city, which happens to still be a major city today.

The fact that these jealous preachers are not named probably means that people knew who he meant. Even if they did not know, the very act of making this point at all raises the readers to an increased degree of suspicion. ON TOP OF THAT, this letter circulated. People in various places made copies. Polycarp, writing from Smyrna in around 130 AD, he encourages the Philippians to read and study this letter. (Polycarp to the Philippians ch 3). Apparently, he had a copy on the opposite side of the Agean.

The irony is that we haven’t looked at other examples of Paul confronting sin openly. Rather, it’s sufficient to look at the passage people use to justify ignoring blatant pastoral hypocrisy. But other passages would also be sufficient. Stephen could have kept his mouth shut and saved his life. He could have continued preaching that way. Think of how many souls he could have won? But he called out the Jews for rejecting and crucifying Jesus.

The pagan historian Tacitus tells us that Nero persecuted Christians after he got a confession from them. Tacitus is a generally reliable historian because he is careful to reference government records where he can. While these records no longer exist, they would have been available when Tacitus wrote. It’s unlikely he would invent false stories when they could be so easily debunked. It’s like modern scholars citing their sources. He tells us that Nero accused the Christians of burning Rome. They didn’t confess to that, but rather their hatred of all mankind. Christians were often accused of that since they refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods. The anger of the gods was the standard explanation for disasters, whether natural or from war. In other words, they confessed to being Christians. (Annals 15:44) Tertullian, a christian theologian, tells us that Peter perished during the Neronian persecution. He also cites the government records. (Scorpiace ch 15)

Peter was literally confessing to being a Christian during the trial itself. The direct result of this confession was his execution. Nero held a big party in his private garden for this public event. He spent the party riding around in a chariot since he planned to soon compete in chariot races. Peter could have had future plans too. And yet, there were times when telling the honest and open truth was more important than continuing to preach. How many souls could this literal Apostle of Jesus Christ have won if he merely pretended to praise the pagan gods? Wouldn’t people have understood his reasoning? They were going to kill him after all. Disbelievers offered empty sacrifices all the time in Rome. It was generally considered not to be a big deal.

Both Peter and Stephen didn’t make some convoluted calculation of how many souls would be lost versus saved. The problem with that type of math is that we never know what we are really doing. Perhaps it was these martyr’s deaths that brought more to the faith? Maybe decades of continued preaching would best be done by their followers instead of them? With them gone, their students would spread out instead of huddling around them. In other words, we don’t know the result of refusing to continue to support these hypocritical preachers of our day. Maybe ending support would do more good for the faith than bad. Complicated calculations like that are best left up to God.

Instead, we can follow the example of people like Paul and others. Paul called out Peter for his hypocrisy in Antioch. Jewish law prohibited eating with Gentiles. Some Christians wanted these laws to continue. Paul saw Christ as the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for all who believe. Peter did one thing while the Jewish Christians were around and another while they were gone. You can’t help but imagine young gentile Christians whose feelings were hurt by this. Maybe they didn’t want to get caught in this conflict. Paul makes it clear that he was public in his statements. It had to be awkward. Someone probably told him to keep his mouth shut since “they way things are” is doing so much good for the kingdom. The church barely existed at this point.

But from Peter and Paul’s perspective, the church didn’t need them. They had seen the risen Jesus. If a catastrophe like the death of Jesus cannot stop God’s work, why worry about this? Peter was keeping his true actions secret from Jewish Christians. He was openly hurting the Gentile Christians. It should have been the other way around. Those who are new to the faith should be treated tenderly. Those who grew up in God’s word need to be treated more seriously. And what was the outcome of Paul’s actions? They held a council in Jerusalem. The leaders there published an open letter where they agreed with Paul. Peter recounted his revelation from Jesus about this issue. And the church still managed to survive to become the world’s biggest religion today.

 

{7/21/25 edit

 If you haven't guessed, I'm criticizing the utilitarian view of ethics here.  So I figured it would be good to finish with explaining one of the more standard criticisms of utilitarianism.

 

Imagine a man named Stan.   Stan wants to achieve a good outcome.  We'll call this good outcome event B.  Stan reasons that if he performs a bad action, then that will set in motion a complicated chain of events.  We'll call this action A.  But Stan has reasoned that this action A will ultimately bring about event B.  Stan weighs action A against event B. He reasons that event B brings about a great enough good to outweigh the bad of action A.

 

There are a lot of problems with this.  First, if the chain of events is complicated, then perhaps action A won't really bring about event B?  What if Stan is incorrectly weighing the bad of action A and the good of event B?  What if Stan can bring about event B in some other way without a bad action?

 

We've talked about all of that already.  But there is more.  Stan's plan entails that a bad action can bring about a good event.  But that bat swings both ways.  This means that a good event can also bring about a bad event later on.  What if event B brings on some bad event C?  Thus, if the bad of C greatly outweighs the good of B, then Stan's plan has become a bad plan.  The problem is that this type of question can literally go on forever.  Events cause other events which just lead to more and more events.

 

In addition to that, there are other chains of causes and effects that can take place in parallel.  What if action A brings about event B, but also brings about event M in a chain of events that is alongside that of Stan's plan?  How can Stan really set up this plan with any confidence?

 

Thus, the alternative is to just do the right thing because it is good to do it.  This is called deontology.  We simply have a moral duty to do the right thing.  Our actions are not justified based on later good outcomes.  Good actions are their own justification.  Let me be clear here.  Deontology still has room to look at consequences.  You can have a moral duty to bring about good outcomes.  But justifying today's evil actions by tomorrow's goods becomes utilitarianism when you start making long term calculations. 

 

A standard criticism of deontology is that it leads to ethical conflicts.  There are situations where every choice you make will be bad in some way.  It's tough to weigh these.   But utilitarianism doesn't really help since nobody really can know what will cause what to happen.  And it seems that moral conflicts are simply the real way things are.

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