Being Right vs Doing Good

Sign that says "Right" with an arrow pointing in one direction, and "wrong" with an arrow pointing the other direction. Image source.

Which is more important, being right or doing good? Having the correct opinions on every issue, or taking actions which make a positive difference in the world?

In the ideology of conservative Christianity and conservative politics, being right is more important than being good. You can see this in so many different issues. I have examples.

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"Saved by faith, not by works"

I was taught that this is the main message of Christianity: We are not saved by something we did; we are saved by what Jesus did. We can never do enough good deeds to earn our way into heaven- we just need to believe in Jesus, that's how we get to heaven. We are saved by faith, not by works. 

Evangelical Christians say it's totally legit if someone does all kinds of immoral things, and then on their deathbed they repent and convert to Christianity- on that basis, they get into heaven. It doesn't matter what they did. It doesn't matter if they did good things or if they murdered a lot of people. What matters is that, in the end, they had the correct beliefs.

I've seen conservatives speak out against "the social gospel"- ie, the idea that Christianity is about helping people here and now, that Christianity can be good news for the poor (as Jesus said in Luke 4:18), that Christians should fight for justice. Speaking out against "the social gospel" because it would be bad if people were too focused on this idea of doing good and helping people, and that caused them to place less emphasis on making sure everyone believes the right things. Yeah, conservative Christians are very suspicious of anyone preaching that Christians should do good deeds. Doing good deeds should be a secondary concern- we can't ever lose sight of the fact that being right is the most important.

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Focus on the Family

Focus on the Family is a conservative Christian organization which teaches that there is only 1 correct way to have a family. You have to follow all these rules- that's the "correct" way to live. That's God's way. This image of a hetero couple, with children, the husband as the head of the family, and divorce is not allowed.

If anyone is not living according to this model, well, they deserve whatever happens to them. They should be living the right way. See, we need to teach everyone that if you don't live the right way, then the natural result is that bad things will happen to you. That's just the way it is. It's a kindness, to let everyone know about the risks of living the "wrong" way.

One might point out, hey, wouldn't it be better if we do some research on people's actual family situations, and what kind of ideas/policies would actually help them? Ha! Of course not. In conservative ideology, we already know that people will only get the best outcome if they follow our rules. If they're not following our rules, we shouldn't support them in that. 

(See these posts from the Slacktivist: "Pro-Family" means anti-families and To truly be ‘pro-family,’ you have to be pro-worker)

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Is homosexuality worse than other sins?

15ish years ago, when everyone was arguing about marriage equality, sometimes people would point out that it seems like conservative Christians are treating homosexuality like it's worse than any other sin. What's up with that?

Back then, I was evangelical, and my position was that it's *not* worse than other sins, and we should try to have consistent beliefs about sin, treating all sin as significant but also able to be forgiven by Jesus. (And also, I believed it wasn't a sin to have same-sex attraction, but it was a sin to "act on it.")

But also, at the same time, it sort of made sense to me why we always talked about it in a way that gave people the impression that we thought it was the worst sin. Because there was something about it that intersected with this "being right vs doing good" dichotomy, in a way that other sins didn't. The issue wasn't just that "it's a sin to be in a same-sex relationship"- it was "it's a sin to be in a same-sex relationship, but some people are claiming it's not a sin, and they are wrong, and we need to make it very clear that they are wrong on this factual matter." If a Christian leader does something really bad, like abuse kids, or embezzle money, or whatever, they can stand up and make a big speech about "oh I did this sinful thing, but now I have repented and God has forgiven me." Regardless of their actions, they can proclaim that they now have the "correct" beliefs. But if a Christian leader gets outed as gay, well... they're going to continue to be gay. 

In an ideology where your actions don't really matter, as long as you say the right thing, a refusal to accept the required beliefs about homosexuality is basically worse than any actual bad thing you can do.

People might ask "Why are Christians making such a big deal about this? Aren't they supposed to be, like, helping the poor or something?" But see, nobody is debating whether it's good and important to help poor people or not. See, we all already know the "correct" answer on that, so no need to really make a big deal out of it. But this LGBT issue, well, people have the wrong opinions on it- so we need to argue with them all the time.

(Anyway, I'm queer now, and glad to not be in evangelical world any more.)

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Policies that actually lower the abortion rate 

In the "pro-life" movement, the belief that abortion is bad, and that those women who want abortions are evil and must be stopped, is treated as more important than actually creating policies that lower the abortion rate.

Statistically, we know that banning abortion doesn't really lower the abortion rate. You know what does? Giving people good sex education, and access to contraception. Oh, but the "pro-life" movement can't be supporting those things- because, we know the correct lifestyle is to not have sex outside of marriage. If you're following the correct lifestyle, obviously you will never need an abortion. (Fact-check: this is not true.) It's very important to make sure everyone knows the correct way to live, and if they stray from that path, well, no we shouldn't give them any help or support. Just keep telling them what the correct thing to do would have been.

And another thing that lowers the abortion rate: Policies which help women have more control over their lives, enabling them to set up their lives in such a way that they're able to have the number of children they want to have. Policies which protect pregnant people's rights. Paid maternity leave. Ah, but the "pro-life" movement doesn't advocate for these things. Because it's about having the "right" opinion on abortion- not about actually doing things that will decrease the abortion rate.

(See this post from Libby Anne: How I Lost Faith in the “Pro-Life” Movement)

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And every issue is like this

Seriously, most conservative political positions I can think of, they're about how we already know the right way to live and/or structure society, and therefore the most effective thing we can do is to tell people that's what they're supposed to do, and reward people who are already doing it. We can't give any help to people who aren't living the right way, ugh, that would be terrible, that would send the message that it's *okay* to live like that.

Political policies related to economics, for example. People who are college-educated, people who don't have credit card debt or student loans, people who are rich, people who own businesses- they are the ones doing things the "right" way. If someone proposes a new government policy that would financially help people who are not doing things the "right" way, well, obviously it's a bad idea- we should be teaching people what the right way is, and encouraging them toward it. Not rewarding their bad behavior.

Or another example- universal health care. Wow, wouldn't it be great if the US had universal health care? But conservatives oppose it, because the government isn't *supposed* to be doing that. We already know the "right" way to have a society, and it's that people should be responsible for themselves, rather than being dependent on the government.

(Very interesting that this belief about the "right" way to run one's government doesn't seem to take into account all the other countries in the world, and their different government structures and policies and the results they produce. Very interesting.)

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Conservatives would argue that doing things the "right" way *is* what's most beneficial

Now, I'm kind of framing this like conservatives believe they must follow what is "right" at the expense of doing what actually helps people- but this isn't exactly accurate. They would argue that getting everyone to do things the "right" way *is* what's most helpful, in the long run.

They would argue that, if you really had perfect information about the results of polices that promote doing things the "right" way, vs policies which naively help people who appear to need help- if you analyze these results and calculate which way does the most good, you would find that doing things the "right" way *is* what's best, in terms of real-world results. Sure, they believe this on an abstract, theoretical level, but if you point to a specific study that found that sticking to the "right" way was harmful, this is not going to change their minds. Just speaking for myself back then, when I was growing up republican, I would have said the study wasn't measuring the full scope of the results. (Maybe something seems like a good idea now, but in the long run leads to the downfall of society, ever think of that? ... It's very hard to come up with actual evidence to prove or disprove this...)

It's not really about the evidence. We already know the right answers, so there's not really much of a need to actually go out and collect evidence about the real-world effects of these ideas. We already know what the right way is.

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Which is more important, being right or doing good? Conservative Christianity and conservative politics say it's more important to be right. And this explains so much.

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See also, this post from the Slacktivist: Rights for me but not for thee, which discusses the idea "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." 

I personally feel it fits better to say conservatism is about being right (and I said in this post). But you could make the case that this "in-groups and out-groups" thing is kind of saying the same thing. The in-groups are the people who are doing things the right way- of course the government should support them, not put restrictions on them! And the out-groups are people who are not living according to the "correct" rules- well obviously the law should try to push them to live the "right" way- and definitely should not give them any support in their wrongness.

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Follow-up post: Jesus Weighs in on "Being Right vs Doing Good"

Related:

On Washing Machines and Republicans 

How long will you wait for your experience to match up with the bible?