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Does it Really Pay to Break the Rules

Hypocrisy Honesty Rationalize

Source: "Harvard professor fired for being dishonest in study about dishonesty" by Mik Olson, NotTheBee.com, published 5/28/25

Link to Source: Click here to view source

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2025-05-29

Scripture: Matthew 7:5 ; Luke 12:2

Author: Illustration Exchange
4

ILLUSTRATION

She was paid $1 Million per year to research and teach on the topics of "honesty and ethical behavior," but no longer. As of May 28, 2025, Harvard University researcher Francesca Gino has lost her tenure.

Why? Mik Olson of Not the Bee reports:

"The honesty professor has been officially canned for dishonesty while conducting studies on [wait for it!] ... dishonesty. ... So now we have an ethics expert embroiled in a legal battle over whether she cooked the academic books — you really can't make this stuff up. ... Anyways, word on the street is that Harvard is looking for a new ethics professor! Only requirement: Be Ethical."

Publisher Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine tweeted it this way:

Harvard behavioral scientist Francesca Gino, who was paid $1 million a year to study honesty and ethical behavior, was accused of manipulating observations to better support her conclusions. Now lost tenure. Do they still teach irony at Harvard?

The accusations ranged from data falsification to plagiarized passages in some of her high-profile publications.

Ironically (errr, unironically), Professor Gino actually produced a video short several years ago entitled "Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life." 

Yep, you really CAN'T make this stuff up!

APPLICATION

With instructional videos on the benefits of breaking the rules, is it any wonder this "ethics" and "honesy" professor would find herself on the wrong side of, well, ethics and hoesty?

Hypocrisy is the sworn enemy of the frutiful Christian life. We love to put our best face forward, virtue signalling our ethical and honest Christian walk and lifestyle, all while self-justifying our bending of the rules, a little here, a little there, until finally, our sins are found out. "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known" (Luke 12:2, ESV).

In the end, it's hard to live a lie. Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy.

"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:5, ESV).

"You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’" (Matthew 15:7-9, ESV).

"Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people" (2 Timothy 3:5, ESV).
 

 

Woman Films Her Own Abortion

Abortion Guilt Rationalize

Source: "Why I Filmed My Own Abortion" by Emily Letts, as published on Cosmopolitan.com, 5/5/14.

Link to Source: Click here to view source

Contributed By: Barnett Gushin | Date Posted: 2014-05-27

Scripture: Romans 81:

Author: Emily Letts / Barnett Gushin
1

ILLUSTRATION

Emily Letts is an abortion counselor at Cherry Hill Women’s Center in New Jersey. Recently, she found herself unexpectedly pregnant. She new immediately that she would have an abortion, and soon began thinking of ways she could use her experience to embolden other women who likewise found themselves in an unwanted pregnancy. Below, in her own words,* is her rationale:
 
I was a professional actress for many years. … I had a friend who was a birth doula, and she fascinated me with her stories about giving birth and growing life. … I trained as a doula … During my training, I learned there are … birth doulas, adoption doulas, and abortion doulas. A light went off in my head.
 
The idea of helping women through an abortion and supporting them and reassuring them that they are still wonderful and beautiful resonated deeply with me. … I reached out to Cherry Hill … I was hired on the spot …
 
I found out I was pregnant in November. I had been working at the clinic for about a year. It was my first pregnancy … I hadn't been using any kind of birth control, which is crazy, I know. …  Before this experience, hormonal birth control scared me because of complications I’d heard about from friends … So I tracked my ovulation cycle, and I didn’t have any long-term partners. I thought I was OK. But, you know, things happen. I wound up pregnant. …
 
Once I caught my breath, I knew immediately I was going to have an abortion. … The guy wasn’t involved in my decision. …
 
While I was pregnant and waiting for my procedure, I thought, “Wait a minute, I have to use this.” … I searched the Internet, and I couldn’t find a video of an actual surgical procedure in the clinic that focused on the woman’s experience. …
 
I wanted to show it wasn’t scary — and that there is such a thing as a positive abortion story. It’s my story. … 
 
I was focused on staying positive and feeling the love from everyone in the room. … I know that sounds weird, but to me, this was as birth-like as it could be. It will always be a special memory for me. I still have my sonogram, and if my apartment were to catch fire, it would be the first thing I'd grab. …
 
Every time I watch the video, I love it. I love how positive it is. …
 
I know there are women who feel great remorse. I have seen the tears … but what I really wanted to address in my video is guilt.
 
Our society breeds this guilt. We inhale it from all directions. Even women who come to the clinic completely solid in their decision to have an abortion say they feel guilty for not feeling guilty. Even though they know 110 percent that this is the best decision for them, they pressure themselves to feel bad about it.
 
I didn’t feel bad. …  And I am grateful that I can share my story and inspire other women to stop the guilt.
 
*Click the link to source above for the full transcript of her comments. 
 

APPLICATION

Dear Emily, there IS a way to "stop the guilt," but it's not found in denying your culpability or painting your shame in a "positive" light. True absolution from guilt can only come by receiving the grace and forgiveness found in Christ Jesus for the payment for our sin. Why do you think you cling to your sonogram picture as you do? Search your heart. Is it because it is now the only way you can "carry" the child you chose to discard.
 
I will pray for you to face your own grief, even as you say so many who visit your clinic grieve, so that you might find forgiveness in Christ, and with it, the genuine absolution of all guilt and shame. 
 
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). 
 
"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter" (Isaiah 5:20).

Romanticizing Our Spiritual Junk

Sin Self-deceived Rationalize

Source: Amazon.com and "Cover Story: Warhol's House of Stuff" by Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Art Critic, Phittburgh Post-Gazette, 3/1/02

Link to Source: Click here to view source

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2012-04-04

Scripture: Hebrews 3:15 ; 1 John 1:9

Author: Illustration Exchange
3

ILLUSTRATION

“Andy Warhol (1928-1987) started out as a very successful commercial illustrator, and became a painter, photographer, printmaker, film and video maker, magazine publisher, author, and celebrity. He had his first art show in 1962, at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles which showed his "32 Campbell's Soup Cans." From that point on Warhol's work revolutionized the art world.” – Amazon.com

When the executors of Andy Warhol’s estate went in to “remove his effects” from his home they were shocked by what they found. His five-story NY home was packed from floor to ceiling with boxes, crates, trunks, and piles of collectible, not to mention mountains of junk (old mail, newspapers, old food, etc.). So advanced was his obsessive/compulsive behavior to hang onto his junk that he was reduced to living in just two rooms of his massive home.
 
Warhol was a classic hoarder, yet because of his celebrity status—known as a celebrated pop culture icon—his hoarding was repackaged into a romantic peek into the life and mind of a legend.  Art Exhibits showcased his stuff under the title “Possession Obsession: Objects from Andy Warhol’s Personal Collection.”
 
The publishers of a book by the same title described him as “passionately engaged with the historical past, an interest which found a direct yet imaginative expression in the serious collecting he undertook from the mid-50s until his death. Possession Obsession proposes that collecting was another form of artistic practice for Warhol, one that provides as much insight into his interests, tastes, and ideas as do his other myriad art forms.”

APPLICATION

Warhol held onto his physical junk with the same tenacity we hold on to our spiritual junk. We don’t want to let it go. To justify ourselves, we repackage it as something artistic, romantic even. Promiscuity becomes free love. Anger becomes open, honest expression. Selfishness becomes self-actualization. We stubbornly resist God’s offer to overcome our possession obsession because we love our junk.

Don’t wait until the Great Executor of your estate—God Himself—comes to deal with your junk at the end of your life. It will be too late. In that day, your life won’t be celebrated and repackaged as something artistic and beautiful. It will be judged, and rightly so, as something full of stuff, but empty of substance. 
 
“As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:15). “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us clean out our storehouse of spiritual junk! from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Of Whiskey Wars and Wholeheartedness

Hardness of Heart Devotion Jesus' Lordship

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2025-06-14

Scripture: Matthew 22:37 ; Psalms 86:11

Author: Illustration Exchange
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Don't Eat the Cessna

Desires Sin Self-deceived

Contributed By: Herry Herry | Date Posted: 2024-09-18

Scripture: James 1:14 ; Ephesians 2:3

Author: Tama Sinulingga
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Paying It Forward: Rote or Real?

First Love Hardness of Heart God's Love

Contributed By: Benjamin Burks | Date Posted: 2024-02-28

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 9:7 ; Revelation 2:4

Author: Benjamin Burks
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Don't Eat the Hot Wings

Decision Making Deceived/Deception Sin

Contributed By: Anthony Johnson | Date Posted: 2023-08-24

Scripture: Matthew 24:11 ; Matthew 7:13

Author: Anthony Johnson
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The Frosty Creep of a Hardening Heart

Hardness of Heart Disobedience Unbelief

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2023-02-01

Scripture: Hebrews 3:15

Author: F. B. Meyer
1

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The Bible Message In 217 Words

God's Patience End Times Hardness of Heart

Contributed By: Illustration Exchange | Date Posted: 2022-10-05

Scripture: 2 Peter 3:4

Author: Mitchell Dillon
11

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Darkness Will Come To Light

Deceived/Deception Evil Cultural Trends

Contributed By: Jeff Lines | Date Posted: 2021-03-28

Scripture: John 3:19 ; Hebrews 4:13

Author: Jeff Lines
5

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