text: what is the hypocrisy of holy willie's prayer by robert burns? i've read different things and im not sure. analysis the poem is an attack on the bigotry and hypocrisy of the kirk (church), as told by the (fictional) self-justifying prayer of a (real) kirk elder, holy willie. throughout the poem, holy willie condemns himself as a hypocrite while simultaneously asking god to judge harshly and show no mercy to his fellow transgressors. burns used the example of holy willie to make the point that the calvinist theology underpinning the entire kirk was equally hypocritical.  the kirk was still a powerful moral force in burns' day, and one which he believed he had a justified grievance against. burns felt that belief in predestination, whether to salvation or damnation, could only make people morally reckless, because logically their actions could have no influence on their eternal fate. he observed that belief in predestination, particularly to salvation, had the additional tendency to make people insufferably self-righteous. it is this last tendency in particular, and the more general theological and moral sterility embodied in the teachings of the contemporary kirk, that he rails against very effectively in this work.  willie's soapy sanctimony is alternated with his self-justifying tales of his own fornication and other transgressions with very great skill. the characters are drawn from real life, with no names being changed.  in the book of ebenezer le page, 'holy willie' is used as a term of abuse for insincere clerics.