Saturday, December 22, 2012

Tolerance, Judgmentalism, and the Christian Balance

Luke 6:37, Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Wow, this would be the verse for the pluralistic society we live in: “Hey bro, don’t judge! Haters gonna hate.” Today, the only sin is judgmentalism. There is a sense in which all of this is true and has a Christian ring to it, but as usual the world has missed the train of truth and boarded another at the right station but headed in the wrong direction.

Our world tells us not to judge another’s sin, unless it directly violates our own rights. This is completely backwards to the ways of God! As Christ-followers and Sonseekers, we are called to stand up against unrighteousness (for God hates sin), but we are not to judge others for offense committed against us for we have been forgiven and are therefore called to forgive in turn. Our task isn't "not judging" or "condemning" but rather judging appropriately; for examples, see passages like John 7:24 and Matthew 7:15-20 where we are instructed to exercise proper discernment.

We too often judge people according to our standards (what they wear, what they listen to, etc.) and not God's (why they where what they wear and why they listen to what they listen to). We stand ready to condemn those who commit offenses against us yet are lenient when people sin against those we're not particularly fond of. Even worse we are far more ready to take offense at a slight to us and are far less grieved when we see people disrespecting or "hating on" God, the kinds of things that led Jesus to His most violent actions committed on earth (see John 2:13-17).

American society promotes a strange synthesis: toleration of people's life choices and murderous vindictiveness when these choices affect us negatively. These are evident in the entertainment industry where, for example, homosexual couples are increasingly promoted as normal or at least funny (as in ABC's Modern Family) yet "BA" characters like John McClane in the Die Hard movies or Jack Bauer in 24 feel justified taking the lives of those who have crossed them and their loved ones. These trends in American culture are hardly biblical and Christians must beware lest the same attitudes seep into the church and make it as morally reprobate as the Corinthian church that prided itself in its toleration of sexual immorality among its members yet sanctioned vicious protection of individual rights in secular courts (see I Corinthians 5 and 6)––all things Paul bemoaned as tarnishing to the name of Christ we all bear as Christians.

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