Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Lord of Karma

You Reap What You Sow

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

As the old saying goes, if they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

We should begin by recognizing that the sinful heart of man is everywhere, and affects everything we do. No one gets a pass—conservatives, liberals, and all in-betweeners. The Church is not excluded because the Church is charged to welcome sinners, and part of the price of this is that sinners actually come.

No institution or movement should be charged on the basis of sinful or scandalous behavior that appears there. Were we to start doing that, everybody would be vulnerable to accusation. The issue is rather the problem of being two-faced—demanding that others deal with what you won’t deal with.

Contrary to popular misunderstanding, the Lord did not require us to “judge not.” His teaching on this was not to judge with unequal balances, not to judge with a double standard. The judgment you apply to others will be applied to you.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Matt. 7:1–2).

In other words, apply the principle of the Golden Rule to your assessments of others. Do not judge with any standard you would not want applied to yourself—because impersonal karma is not a thing. It is highly personal, God is not mocked because a man reaps what he sows (Gal. 6:7), and—don’t take this in any heretical way—Jesus is the Lord of karma.

Right after the Lord told His followers not to judge (with a double standard), He also told them that they had to be careful to identify dogs, swine, and ravenous wolves. 

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you” (Matt. 7:6).

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15).

This is only a problem with the Lord’s teaching when those who identify dogs, swine and wolves are themselves dogs, swine, and wolves.

And so the central problem with the perverse culture of Hollywood has been their sense of moral superiority, their censoriousness, and their prim denunciations of people who are far their moral superiors. What is happening now is a demonstration of this truth.

Hollywood, a place that has been devoted to mocking God, is discovering that God is not mocked.