Living in a Disingenuous Culture
It’s a quiet morning as I sit in my church office. I just completed this week’s message. There is worship music playing in the background. I hear a group of ladies praying in the distance. With my eyes closed and a prayerful mind toward God and a blog topic, I hear a song phrase begin to resonate. It starts quietly, but slowly builds to a rather loud voice echoing in my head.
“Yo I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want.” Thank you, Spice Girls. And, before you go too far in that song, only this phrase is echoing.
The theme of the song is authenticity in a relationship. In this culture of criticism and angst, I think I know what most Americans want. We want people to stop being disingenuous—our friends, our coworkers, our religious leaders, and certainly our politicians.
Disingenuous means not candid or sincere. It is highbrow, passive-aggressive behavior. We want people to be honest with us, polite, but honest. We want people to treat us as they want to be treated. It seems like Jesus commented on that. (Insert the Golden Rule here.) Treating people with kindness and respect is not difficult, but it does take effort on our part.
I believe much of the civility in our world is lost because of disingenuous behavior. I want to give a couple of real-life examples from the past few weeks. Let me say from the beginning that I believe both sides of politics play this game, pointing to themselves as innocent and everyone else as guilty.
This past week, it was revealed that two ladies on The View appear in the Epstein Files. Many on the left have asserted that if Trump is in the file, he is guilty. The View has not argued against these claims and, in many ways, continues to encourage that line of thought. However, when their names appeared, they were quick to state that a name in the file does not mean guilt. Disingenuous.
On the other hand, President Trump continues to make assertions that the portrayal of the Obamas as apes is not racist. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of US race relations will understand that blacks in America were commonly portrayed as apes or monkeys during the ages of slavery and segregation. Whether he posted it or a staffer, or whether they claim not to be associating this with race, is irrelevant. Someone should be smart enough to recognize the stupidity of this post. To act otherwise is disingenuous.
When it comes to our spiritual life, the word disingenuous could be exchanged for the more common term hypocrisy. That is when someone does something they say they are not. It is disingenuous to look down on someone for something you are doing. This points to Jesus’ teaching about a splinter and a telephone pole (Matthew 7).
See, what we want, what we really really want is honesty and integrity in all areas of life. Here’s the thing, looking back to Matthew 7, that work must begin in us. It is easy to get frustrated when we live in a disingenuous culture, but have we stopped to ensure that we are not being disingenuous in areas of our lives? Maybe the hardest place to deal with this is when we are disingenuous with ourselves. Self denial and the lack of self awareness is dangerous to our spiritual growth. That is why Scripture often instructs us to “examine ourselves.” This is likely most widely known in the communion text of 1 Corinthians 11.
I beg of you to forgive me if I have ever been disingenuous with you. I certainly ask for God’s forgiveness if the same is true of my relationship with Him. What do we want in our nation? What do we want in our church? What do we want in our relationships? The answer is honesty and integrity. That is truly what we want.
Thank you Spice Girls for contributing to the question. Afterall, it would be disingenuous for me to take all the credit.
*No Spice Girls were harmed in the writing of this blog; however, dear reader, I do apologize for this earworm that is now in your head.
Through Time 