Being "Right" Doesn't Make You Virtuous

Why switching to the "biblical view" or to the "right side of history" might not make you as virtuous as you think.

I think it’s fair to say that we’re past the peak of the ex-vangelical/deconstruction movement. New theological, social, and political coalitions are still solidifying, but I suspect that the majority of folks who will have “conversions” of one kind or another have already had them. My own season of angst (from 2020–2023ish) didn’t result in any drastic changes of ideological conviction; I still hold more or less traditional views on all sorts of theological and social issues. I would still identify (with some grumpy and persnickety qualifiers) as an evangelical. It’s the world I grew up in, and it is the ecclesial-cultural world in which I intend to stay, hoping I can be of some help along the way.

The purpose of this post is not to adjudicate or debate any single evangelical/post-evangelical hot button issue (gender roles, LGBT inclusion, immigration policy, Trumpism, spiritual abuse, etc.). I’d also like to suspend any judgment on whether the stayers or the go-ers made the “right” decision as it relates to the evangelical church. Instead, I want to talk about how we contend for and carry our beliefs, whether they align with “traditional” evangelicalism or with a new “progressive” post-evangelicalism.

First, some qualifiers.

What about Truth, Bro?

What we believe matters––matters quite a lot, actually. If you affirm some version of biblical authority––infallibility, inerrancy, whatever––how you interpret scripture matters quite a lot. If you think Christians are called to contend for the way of Jesus in the public square, which political causes you support matters quite a lot. If you think the way people live and believe has eternal implications beyond this life, it’s important that you get those right to the best of your ability.

But some will (in a sense, rightly) critique an overly-rationalistic emphasis on doctrinal precision at the expense of love. It’s a well-worn cliché that love is all that really matters. But this is not quite right. Surely truth matters as well.

In Exodus, YHWH describes himself to Moses as abounding in “hesed and emet” (Exodus 34:6) a phrase that could be translated as “abounding love/graciousness and truth.” Similarly, Jesus is described in John’s Gospel as “full of grace (χάριτος, charitos) and truth (ἀληθείας, alētheias)” (John 1:14).

This is also a bit of an evangelical cliché, one that I’ve heard many preachers, small group leaders, and friends emphasize over the years. We need to contend for the truth, but we need to make sure we do it in a loving and gracious way. Why? Because this reflects the very character of God.

Still, in multiple early Christian texts, there’s a special privileging of love. Paul writes in Galatians 5 that, in Christ, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (v. 6b). He goes on to echo Jesus’ own teaching that the sum of the entire law is the command to love (Gal 5:14, cf. Matt 22:40).

So, having the “right” or “true” view––on x doctrinal topic or y social issue or z philosophical question––really does matter. However, early Christian instructions rank love as the highest value of all.

Now, back to virtue.

The Unvirtuous Intellectual Legacy of American Evangelicalism

There are a whole slew of sins common in the activist wing of evangelicalism (the portion of the church that tends to spend the most time online and be the most vocal in the public square). These include but are not limited to: partisanship (i.e. partiality), anti-intellectualism, arrogance, pride, slander, hatred of enemies, hypocrisy, and keeping records of wrongs.

In a time of ideological churn and shifts like our own, we may feel tempted to pat ourselves on the back for the rightness of our ideology without asking deeper and harder questions––questions about the progress or stagnation of growth in our character. So, the thing to ask yourself––the question I try to ask myself––is this: Independent of any ideological shifts or lack thereof, am I growing in the virtues of love and charity towards those with whom I disagree on theological, political, and social questions?

If you’re someone who is critical of conservative evangelicals for their partisanship, have you adopted a similar partisanship in the other direction? Are you as willing to point out the shortcomings of your own “side” as you wish the other “side” was willing to note their own?

And in our polarized ideological moment, we can also be tempted to think ideological, theological, or political alignment are all that really matter. But if you’ve changed political allegiances, this alone doesn’t make you a better, godlier person. Maybe all you’ve changed is who you show partiality towards.

You can change your ideological position without changing your disposition towards those who think differently than you.

During and after my own “deconstruction” phase (not that I ever called it that myself), I was disappointed to see these immaturities and vices often reflected in my own behavior. I had turned the uncharitable, unvirtuous disposition that I used to direct at “liberals” back at the evangelical church that had reared me. How’s that for progress? Again, this is not to trivialize any of the points of controversy that currently swirl inside and around the perimeter of evangelical and post-evangelical identity.

And, full disclosure, this beef is mostly directed at my newly-socially progressive ex-evangelicals brothers and sisters, though the complaint certainly extends far beyond them. Plenty of folks who maintain “traditional” evangelical views are jerks and hypocrites. Still, I think there’s something uniquely unsavory about someone who leaves a subculture spewing accusations of hypocrisy, uncharity, or partisanship only to continue to be characterized by these same vices––just with a new slate of ideological commitments.

Many folks will critique conservative Christians for being in the Republican Party’s back pocket while more or less slipping into the back pocket of the Democratic Party. They go from quoting out-of-context verses that superficially seem to support conservative policies to quoting out-of-context verses that superficially seem to support progressive policies. Or, perhaps they spent a previous era of their life condemning professing Christians who affirmed same-sex relationships (or LGBT folks themselves), but now that their view on the issue has changed, they use the same energy condemning professing Christians who do not affirm same-sex relationships.

Remember, it is very possible to change your position on x, y, or z social or theological issue without any meaningful growth in wisdom or insight, much less godliness. This is exactly the sort of thing Paul is warning about in 1 Corinthians 13, and Galatians 5. Love is the sine qua non of the Christian life, the sum and summary of Christian virtue.

To paraphrase “The Dude” of Big Lebowski fame: you can be right and still an a**hole. But this is not merely a matter of being kinda mean. It’s a matter of arrogance, viewing yourself as right in your own eyes, a lack of humility and generous disposition towards others, making bad faith assumptions, failing to do to others as you would have them do to you. These intellectual vices are all to often characteristic of evangelicals, and it should be no surprise that they commonly show up among ex-evangelicals.

Surely loving your enemies includes loving your family members who you think are politically misguided. Surely it also includes loving the Christian brothers and sisters you think are badly mistaken about third-tier theological issues.

In our contending for what we believe to be true, our virtue does matter every bit as much as the truth itself. “Correct” ideological alignment is no guarantee of growth in godly virtue. As the apostle Paul puts it: You may be able to fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, but if you don’t have love––you’re nothing.