Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we dive into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking lately at the topic of Christian sound bites. Unfortunately, we Christians can toss out platitudes as well that show a lack of serious thinking on our part.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a Christian be hesitant to say something critical because you’re not supposed to judge. I also don’t know how many times they’ve told me that I don’t need to say something critical for the same reason.
Why? Jesus said “Judge not.” Unfortunately, this has fed into our victim mentality culture where people are seen as incredibly fragile. Someone’s feelings are more important than the truth of a matter. You can say what you want, but just be sure you don’t hurt anyone’s feelings, unless they’re orthodox evangelical Christians. They’re open game.
When Jesus gave that command, he was referring to hypocritical judging. If you have a plank in your eye, then you are not authorized to remove that speck from your brother’s eye.
Consider when you say you’re not supposed to judge. In doing so, some judgments have already been made. For instance, you have made a judgment that Jesus is a reliable authority figure and someone whose advice you should trust. (Heck. Just by becoming a Christian, you have made a judgment)
Second, you have made a judgment that the person you are telling to not judge has in fact judged. You cannot tell them that they are not to judge then without having done so yourself.
Third, you are also making a moral judgment. You are judging that the act of judging is something that is immoral. Once again, the problem with this is the same as above. As soon as you say something about it, you’re guilty.
I recall one Christian asking me about the Westboro movement and saying “Well I don’t want to judge.” We were in my former roommate’s apartment at the time and so I said to her “Is your car downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“Are the doors locked?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She realized then that she’d been caught in a trap. She locked the doors because she judged that there were some people out there who might want to steal her car and the best way to prevent that was by locking the door.
We make judgments like this all the time. We judge when we marry. We judge when we choose a school for kids. We judge when we choose a babysitter. We judge the best way to get to the store when we drive. We judge what we will spend our money on.
If we say we have no right to make moral judgments, then we can no longer call evil evil and condemn it. We cannot say that there is a difference between someone like Mother Teresa and someone like Adolf Hitler.
We also cannot make the judgment that Jesus is the only way to salvation and Islam is not a way to salvation. We cannot judge that Christianity is a true worldview and that atheism is a false worldview.
All of this in the name of so-called tolerance, but rest assured that those who want us to be tolerant are not as tolerant of us as they want us to be of them. Unfortunately, Christians are buying into the victim mentality cop-out.
Does this mean all judging is good. No. John 7:24 tells us to make a righteous judgment and not judge by mere appearances. We should also avoid an attitude of judgmentalism. Some of us, self included, have a tendency to see the worst always and go straight there. We need to get past that.
Let us be sure however, the idea of “You’re not supposed to judge” is not what Jesus had in mind and to teach it does a disservice to him.
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