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February 28, 2005

sincerely, hitler

sin-cere
1. Not feigned or affected; genuine: sincere indignation.
2. Being without hypocrisy or pretense; true: a sincere friend.
3. Archaic. Pure; unadulterated.

The pastor was making a point: being sincere is not enough to get you into heaven. Hitler, he said, was sincere. Hitler was a monster, but he was nonetheless sincere.

And that one stuck to the grill, so I mulled it over while the minister moved on. Was Hitler really sincere? He was definitely serious, motivated, efficient. But was he sincere? I think not. I believe Hitler's monstrosity arose from some insincerity deep within him, for I believe at the core of human evil we always find its consort: insincerity.

God confronted Adam about his sin in Eden, and Adam replied: "The woman you put here with me-she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Notice the dodge. Adam didn't respond to God's question directly, tried to shift God's attention to Eve.

God asked Cain, "where is your brother?" Cain replies with a question: "am I my brother's keeper?" Again with the shiftiness; Cain wants to avoid talking openly about what's happened to Able.

Samuel asked Saul, "What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?" And Saul hemmed and hawed, and said, "ah, yeah, about that. The ah, the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen. But it's for a scrifice to the LORD thy God, Sam. And the rest, we destroyed. Like utterly." Again with the dodge, the shifting of blame.

Paul wrote concerning gentiles who did not know God's law that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts. I do not see how we could accept this as true and yet maintain that Hitler was sincere. Hitler may have been, by the time he broke upon the political scene in Germany, totally convinced of his own sincerity. But who knows how well Adam, or Cain, or Saul had convined themselves of their own justness, rationality, resourcefulness and sincerity before God confronted them?

For my part, I'll be honest; I catch a glimpse of my own insincerity almost every day. (Well, ok, every day.) I hate it, I want it gone, and I believe one day it will be. But for the present, in this life, it's as natural to humans as the air we all breathe, from monsters to Mother Teresa.

Posted by joel at February 28, 2005 01:11 AM

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