THE FINGER OF BLAME AND THE HAND OF GOD
We are good at positioning ourselves on the right side of a dividing line that enables us to criticise others, despite the command not to judge them.

Is cheating on the increase in society?

 

2009 was a bad year for honesty. A number of high profile cases of cheating in politics, business and sport made an enduring impression on the public imagination. The MPs’ expenses scandal was the one which filled the front pages but the back pages were dogged by ever increasing levels of dishonesty.

 

Cheating is not new in sport. The great Victorian cricketer W.G. Grace once, upon being clean bowled, replaced the bails with the observation that the crowd had come to see him bat. With so much money and prestige at stake in sport today, there is ample temptation to cheat. Last year saw three egregious stories of cheating that will long be held up for their chicanery: the Harlequins blood substitution in a Heineken Cup match; the deliberate crashing of a Formula One vehicle in the World Championship to gain competitive advantage; the conscious hand-ball by Thierry Henry to ensure France’s qualification for the football World Cup.

 

The response to Henry’s misdemeanour was surprisingly mixed, perhaps reflecting honesty among supporters that their own teams have often gained from cheating in the past and that to hold Henry up for unique criticism would be hypocritical. Diving in the penalty area is hard to prove and sometimes results in a penalty kick. Henry’s may have been a spectacular and easily proven deception but the outcome was no different to the routine antics of wily centre forwards.

 

Common practice in certain sports often produces eccentric double standards. In cricket, the choice of a batsman only to relinquish his wicket when told to by the umpire rather than returning to the pavilion when he knows he is out is accepted practice. No-one criticises a batsman who stays at the crease even though he felt the edge and one of cricket’s most electrifying encounters resulted from England’s Mike Atherton standing his ground after a clear catch off his glove from South Africa’s Allan Donald. Yet a fielder who claims a catch after it has bounced is usually traduced.

 

When the political journalist Will Hutton wrote a column in September 2009 on how society was so cynical that cheating had become the norm, he was met with a predictable response online. Agreement over the symptom was not shared in the diagnosis. Most people were quick to point the finger at particular culprits, thus exonerating themselves from blame. A Christian response can be forged out of our analysis. Like the sporting world, we are adept at drawing distinctions in conduct where we land ourselves on the right side of the line, thus freeing ourselves to judge others. Jesus said we should leave judgment to God both because it is his prerogative and because we are usually guilty of similar failings. We should be rigorously honest in any assessment we make of ourselves and this extends to cheating. Which of us can say with integrity that we have never deceived another person in life?

 

Pointing the finger of blame has long been a caricature of Christian behaviour but there is a spirit of self-righteousness at work in our culture now which is strengthened by the instant and non-attributable world of online communication. It is so easy to get our opinions out there yet this should make us more, not less reticent to criticise. Resisting the temptation is a subtle but influential task for Christians in an ever shriller world of summary judgment.