No doubt you’ve seen it on Instagram or Facebook, or whatever social media platform you have the misfortune of being compelled to use. Some self-congratulatory automaton sharing a photo of themself being vaccinated or a post about their vaccination and then the words, “You’re welcome.” Virtue Signalling. The latest way shallow and insufferable people get their feeling of righteousness.

This is a kind of modern-day Pharisee. They vaunt their socially acceptable views as proof of their righteousness and acceptability. I imagine a new scenario based on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, although, in our modern version, the tax collector would be seen as automatically righteous because the modern-day Pharisee is a state worshipper and loves confiscatory taxes because…#bekind.

A young man logged onto Facebook to worship himself. “God, I thank me, and demand others thank me that I am not like other people. Even though most of the opinions that I trumpet as righteous are exactly the same as my friends, I am still not like other people. You know, those deplorable evildoers who refuse to wear masks, those who refuse to get the new vaccine, those who refuse to bow to the will of the majority for the sake of convenience, those who hold different opinions to me. I fast twice a week and try to eat less meat for the sake of the environment and don’t give a 10th of all I get because I am righteous and support government redistribution of wealth.” I tell you the truth. This person logged off justified in the sight of his god.

Dear Christian, we ought not to be this person. Jesus wrote about this kind of ‘easy’ righteousness, which is no righteousness at all. He said, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” It is all too easy for a good action to be performed in a way that erases all the heavenly value of that good deed. Not that I am for a minute suggesting that getting a vaccine of dubious efficacy is a righteous act. I don’t think righteousness will ever be as easy as getting a prick in the arm. And boasting about it on social media will never lead to it either.