The What-About Lifestyle

Especially in political discussions we frequently here something like “but what about,” followed by a misdeed of the folks on the other side. In turn, we hear complaints about “what-about-ism,” which tends to annoy people on the other side, whichever other side that may be.

This is not, as you might think, a preface to a political post. Rather, I have found myself asking just where this “what-about” approach comes from. And as I thought about it, I almost immediately realized that this is a lifestyle. Not a rare one either!

Whether it’s in our personal lives, our work, or in our ministries, we have this tendency to look down the road, across the aisle, or over there somewhere, and we find someone or some organization that we can put in the “what-about” position.

“My church is not doing well. But it’s doing better than that church down the road.”

“My language is inappropriate sometimes, but not as often as _____’s.”

“I’m occasionally rude, but there are others much more rude than I am.”

“My church is really quite mission oriented. Well, more mission oriented than most churches in our area/denomination/conference.”

We usually talk about judging and Matthew 7:1 as a command not to hurt other people. That’s not a bad lesson. We shouldn’t be judgmental. (I’m only a little judgmental, much less judgmental than several people I could name!) But there’s another point here. When we start living by judging other people, we start deteriorating ourselves.

Paul said something about this:

We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they do not show good sense.

2 Corinthians 10:12 (NRSVue)

Many feel that if we aren’t vigorously judgmental, people will feel that they can slack off. They’ll do worse. But because the only standards we can achieve are fallible human ones, this judgmental approach actually achieves the opposite effect. There are some who become discouraged on being judged and give up. But there are many who, expecting judgment, carefully blunt the standards to make themselves look good.

One key way of blunting the standards is to point at someone else.

The northern Kingdom of Israel demonstrated this. It’s interesting to read the judgments given of the kings. Kings are generally judged to the first king of the northern kingdom, Jeroboam I. Later kings are either more evil than he was or evil, but not as much. The general standard is that they kept on repeating the sins of Jeroboam I.

What strikes me about this sequence is the final king, Hoshea.

In the twelfth year of King Ahaz of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel; he reigned nine years. ² He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not like the kings of Israel who were before him.

2 Kings 17:1-2 (NRSVue)

He did evil, but he wasn’t as bad as his predecessors. And Samaria fell and the northern tribes went into exile in his reign.

Hoshea could have said, “What about Ahab? He got to complete his reign!”

[L]ooking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith….

Hebrews 12:2 (NRSVue)

Put your eyes on the right standard. Better, let Him draw them.

Some years ago I did a short presentation on this, which I titled “The Sin of Jeroboam.” Video here is kind of ancient, so bear with it!