What’s up with virtue signaling? Is it ok for Christ-followers to share all the good they’re doing in the world for Christ? I mean, it’s just a little Instagram post, right? What’s the harm in that?
Well, let’s take a closer look at what virtue signaling is, and then we’ll come back and answer these questions.
So What Is Virtue Signaling?
Well, virtue signaling is the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue, whether or not you really believe it, adhere to it, or even remotely understand it (I added that last part). It’s the modern-day version of smoke signaling your worth. And I say smoke signaling because smoke doesn’t last, and it’s not meant to last.
Is virtue signaling new to our generation? No, the problem of people publicly signaling their virtue goes way back. Jesus addressed it the most bluntly in Matthew 6:1-4, where He referred to the hypocrites who loved to give their tithes and offerings before a crowd—and the bigger the crowd, the better. The admonition that Jesus gives in verse 3 is not to not even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Or to put it another way, don’t put out a, “Hey, I’m going live with a charitable gesture on Facebook in 10 minutes. Tune in to see how caring I am.” In other words, keep your charitable activities on the down-low.
God looks at the heart, not the outward man (1 Samuel 16:7). The Bible doesn’t really leave room for any virtue signaling. We’re told in places like 1 Thessalonians 4:11 to study to be more quiet and do good to all people (Galatians 6:10), and we aren’t told to talk about our good works in a bragging way—just do them.
Proverbs 27:2 says, let someone else praise you, not your own mouth, an outsider, and not your own lips. I like that. Virtue signaling and fishing for compliments are round-about ways of praising yourself.
Appearances – It’s All About the Optics
Today, it seems of paramount importance for many people to just appear to be on the right side of things. I say appear because it seldom matters whether you actually are on the right side. You just wouldn’t want to be caught on the wrong side. Enter virtue signaling.
They’ll say things to me like:
- “Hey, Pastor, I’d be careful about that tweet. I just don’t know if the optics are what you really want about this.”
- “I want to be seen on the right side of history on this.” (Never mind that history has often been on the wrong side of God.)
- “How do I say this? I didn’t see you participate in Black-out Tuesday on Instagram. You can expect your Instagram to tank, you racist.”
- “Silence is violence.” You know what else is violence? Violence.
You know what else is a whole lot more valuable than virtue signaling? Virtue.
Another question I’m asked is, “What about scriptures like Matthew 5:16, where Jesus said, ‘Let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.’ That sounds like Jesus is encouraging virtue signaling. Am I right?”
My answer: No. This is not an encouragement to boast or announce our good works, as we just saw above actually (from the same sermon). Jesus warns against such showiness. You can look at it again in Matthew 6, but the Lord’s words here in Matthew 5:16 are telling us that in living a faithful life, others can’t help but notice when your virtue’s really there, and your heart is really good. And here’s what will happen when it’s real and true, the glory will go where it belongs: to God, not us.
See, it’s our fallen human nature that creates a tendency to practice virtue signaling; we naturally want others to think well of us. And it’s so easy on social media to broadcast our own good deeds or signal our lofty values. Still, we’ve been called to be faithful and virtuous before God, not man. They don’t need to see our good works and admire us.
I’m Good Because…
So when all is said and done, virtue signaling comes down to self-justification, an almost effortless way to show others that we are good and worthy people. Check these out:
- Hey, I’m good because I care about climate issues.
- I’m good because I care about social justice.
- I’m even better because I care about the gender wage gap.
- I’m good because I care about the problem of racism.
- I’m good because I care about unborn babies.
- I’m good because I didn’t vote for <fill in the blank>.
It goes on and on and on. But it’s no accident that nearly all of these statements use the word care. Why? Because signaling how you feel with words like care and love, or even hate and anger, don’t actually take much effort or much actual doing. You just let the social media world know what your feelings are about said issue, land on the right side (and by right side, I mean the safest side for you to just be left alone), and you should be fine.
Virtue signalers have favorite verbs and favorite words; their favorite verbs are care and feel, and their favorite supporting-cast words to those verbs are outrage, anger, boycott cancel.
We signal our virtue often at the expense of others. We want to make sure that others know that we aren’t like those racists, far-right wingers, or terrorists. That’s not me.
Again we don’t actually want to do anything to help those causes or to get involved, but we want to make sure that it is known for the record that we are better than those other people. It’s signaling to others that you belong to the “correct” group for such a time as this.
So, back to our questions in the beginning…virtue-signaling should be off-limits for the true Christ-follower. Even though sometimes people will see that what you’re doing is virtuous—and we don’t have to be secretive about everything, especially our good works—but the motivation should never be to get TikTok famous. Just live life—and live it for Christ!