A niggling inconsistency in our consideration of moral behavior has always bothered me: A revulsion at the moral weakness of others and a simpering excuse for our own.
Owning up to the conditions of our own individual depravity hurts because it shrivels our pride. We love to be proud of ourselves. "I did such-and-such because I'm such a good person. Well, I only said so-and-so to him because I was really tired and out of patience, and besides he was being unfair. I volunteered at such-and-such place because I'm just so charitable. Well, I didn't say my prayers that morning because I probably would have been late for work." And so on, and so on.
You see what we do here, don't you? My good deeds and qualities are entirely and unreservedly my own doing, while my worse moments are caused by some external factor that exonerates me from any guilt. "I'm a good person" is such a deeply and falsely entrenched personal assertion that we can do no wrong ourselves and see all the wrongs in others.
I say this not as a moralist, but as a great and mighty sinner. I have some sense of how a mind deeply wounded with sin and pride functions, because that's me in a nutshell. But a soul scarred by sin turns out to not perceive its own sin very well, just as a myopic man can't see himself all too well in the mirror. So I'll take a page from C.S. Lewis and explain a few things about psychology and sin.
Sigmund Freud pioneered a sort of therapeutic science called psychoanalysis, in which a trained professional works with a patient to identify what is broken or perverted in his psyche. The hope is that in fixing the broken part, the patient can get on with his life and make more healthy choices. The psyche is here seen as the raw material that a person functions upon. You can't choose to be brave if every fiber of your being is steeped in deep-seated cowardice. You can't choose chastity if your every sexual impulse is directed at the wrong object, or at the wrong time, or in the wrong frequency, or for the wrong reasons. We all know this on some level.
A bad man does bad things for one of two reasons: Either his raw material is disordered and orients him- without much consent on his part- toward evil, or his raw material is fine yet he freely chooses himself over another. This is ultimately the cause of all human evil, but notice that the distinction between the two states above is striking. The first scenario is a matter of a disordered psyche; the second is a matter of moral choices.
We tend to be judged by others by our external actions. Notice this. And note that, as I explained above, a man's external actions result from the interaction between his own choices and his psychological raw material. But God does not judge a man on his raw material. God knows the vehicle you are trying to drive. He knows that the brakes don't work right, and the timing on the cylinders is all off, that the oil hasn't been changed in 12,000 miles, that the steering fluid is almost gone, that the muffler is dangling by a thread. He knows and is sympathetic. You didn't ask for the wreck of a vehicle you are trying to drive; you were saddled with it long before you had any choice. But you have to do what you can with it.
What I mean to point out here is that a man's goodness is not to be judged by the ultimate results of his own disordered decisions; he is judged by what good he does with his raw materials. The smallest kind action taken by a boy raised to be cruel might be a great act of self-sacrifice, while the grandest and most altruistic act of charity by a saint is simply a matter of doing what he is meant to do in the first place.
This may in a small way be what Jesus meant by "Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort." (Luke 6:24) Woe to the man who is nurtured in goodness and has a strong heredity and a good digestion, for much much more is expected from him. Such a man who obtains anything less than sainthood is to be pitied. But also, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." (Luke 6:20) Blessed is the man whose soul is tortured and twisted by sin, because of all people he needs God the most.
A common Christian prayer goes, "Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, and save us from the fires of Hell; lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in the greatest need of thy mercy."
But God, all the same, is not content with a twisted, wretched soul. He wants all souls to be with him in Heaven, so this necessitates some intervention on his part. And his intervention hurts, because, if you ask him, he will help you to kill that self-oriented, hellish part of yourself, and it will kick and scream all the way to the gallows. More about this in another blog post.
So back to the poor, pitiable Miley Cyrus. Is what she did scandalous and to be ridiculed? I think so, yes. Did she perform this public act of self-degradation because she is intrinsically twisted and evil? Perhaps. But in that case she is only to be pitied. Maybe she even restrained herself from doing something much worse. Is she really so evil? I don't think so, not more than the rest of us.
The external actions of Cyrus, resulting from a combination of her own weakness and the pressures of the entertainment industry, should not be used as a tool for moralizers to bask in what they see as their own goodness.
Remember that this was exactly what the Pharisees did, and most of them are probably in Hell.
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