• “Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.”  

Matthew Arnold  

Today was a first. Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress, used a Koran once owned by President Thomas Jefferson at his ceremonial swearing-in. In one sense we have to admire Congressman Ellison for his standing by his Islamic convictions. After decades of Congresspersons hypocritically using Bibles in order to make oaths that they quickly break Congressman Ellison broke with the past using a copy of the Koran which he clearly takes seriously.  

But there is another way to look at this scenario. What does it say about a people when they no longer even feel the necessity to be hypocritical? I mean at least in the past Congresspersons, for the most part, have felt the need to at least keep up the pretense of being Christian as seen in the use of a Bible to compound their sin of breaking oaths. I imagine for most of these elected official the only time they use the Bible is every two years when, out of a custom whose meaning has long been lost, they place their right hand upon God’s Word and promise to uphold a document that most of them clearly haven’t read and don’t have a clue about.