Judgmental Christians?
July 4, 2015
G.D.O'Bradovich III
judgemental christians
From the title, the Gentle Reader may guess the nature of this essay: “Judgmental Christians” is the premise. Of course, premises can be either correct (or true) or incorrect (or false), and we must endeavor to determine the validity of any premise, lest we are misled by popular imaginings.
Since we can not prove a negative, for example, “Christians are not judgmental” or “God does not exist”, neither can we provide evidence to refute the premise; we can only provide evidence based on reasonable speculation as to why Christians are, in fact, judgmental.
“Judge not, lest ye be judged” is frequently, and perhaps defensively, said when outspoken Christians themselves come under censure for their moralizing. “Love the sinner, not the sin” is a corollary that has its origin either in schizophrenia or confused reasoning: Actions are separate, and distinct from, the individual. While we often hear the shorter version, “Don’t judge”, we almost never hear the continuation of Saint Matthew where Christ reasonably says, in common parlance, “What goes around, comes around.”
It is a rare, when the Gospels are taken as a whole, for Christ to condemn individuals. Of course, the exception to this is his venom toward the Pharisees that “den of vipers”. To the woman taken in adultery, Christ asks “Where are your accusers?” and his last words to her are ”Go, and sin no more.” Continuing in the fourth Gospel, Christ encounters the Samaritan woman who had five husbands and was living with a man, who was not her husband, he mentions nothing about sin, or changing her actions, or repenting, or changing her mind. She doesn't even warrant a parting admonition: ”Go and sin no more.” Therefore, we are reasonably certain that the public moralizing of modern Christians does not come from Christ.
Fortunately, we can find the reason for this judgmental trait in the writings of Saint Paul, where he writes: “Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?” As Saint Paul plainly asks, if we will judge angels -who are of a spiritual nature- then we should judge the “things” in the material world, that is, of man. We have no doubt that one of the “things” to be judged is people’s behavior, that is, sinful actions.
Oftentimes, certain people will resort to an appeal to authority when an application of reason is unavailable. We stress upon the Gentle Reader the nature of two books of the Old Testament or Old Covenant: Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Deuteronomy are the laws for the tribes of Israel and Leviticus are the laws for the priestly class of Levi.
Neither Jesus nor Saint Paul sought to impose the Law of Israel on Gentiles. Anyone who proclaims the “freedom we have in Christ” and then imposes the bondage of the Law in a type of theological “bait and switch” are, in the words of the Savior, a variety “of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
Certain people may rush to judgement and describe these Christians as hypocrites, fortunately we are neither rash nor limited in our vocabulary. We do not know if these people reject the “simplicity that is in Christ” or do not acknowledge Christ. Regardless of the reason, the result, their behavior -their attempts to impose the law- , is the same: They are Judaizers.
Since we can not prove a negative, for example, “Christians are not judgmental” or “God does not exist”, neither can we provide evidence to refute the premise; we can only provide evidence based on reasonable speculation as to why Christians are, in fact, judgmental.
“Judge not, lest ye be judged” is frequently, and perhaps defensively, said when outspoken Christians themselves come under censure for their moralizing. “Love the sinner, not the sin” is a corollary that has its origin either in schizophrenia or confused reasoning: Actions are separate, and distinct from, the individual. While we often hear the shorter version, “Don’t judge”, we almost never hear the continuation of Saint Matthew where Christ reasonably says, in common parlance, “What goes around, comes around.”
It is a rare, when the Gospels are taken as a whole, for Christ to condemn individuals. Of course, the exception to this is his venom toward the Pharisees that “den of vipers”. To the woman taken in adultery, Christ asks “Where are your accusers?” and his last words to her are ”Go, and sin no more.” Continuing in the fourth Gospel, Christ encounters the Samaritan woman who had five husbands and was living with a man, who was not her husband, he mentions nothing about sin, or changing her actions, or repenting, or changing her mind. She doesn't even warrant a parting admonition: ”Go and sin no more.” Therefore, we are reasonably certain that the public moralizing of modern Christians does not come from Christ.
Fortunately, we can find the reason for this judgmental trait in the writings of Saint Paul, where he writes: “Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?” As Saint Paul plainly asks, if we will judge angels -who are of a spiritual nature- then we should judge the “things” in the material world, that is, of man. We have no doubt that one of the “things” to be judged is people’s behavior, that is, sinful actions.
Oftentimes, certain people will resort to an appeal to authority when an application of reason is unavailable. We stress upon the Gentle Reader the nature of two books of the Old Testament or Old Covenant: Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Deuteronomy are the laws for the tribes of Israel and Leviticus are the laws for the priestly class of Levi.
Neither Jesus nor Saint Paul sought to impose the Law of Israel on Gentiles. Anyone who proclaims the “freedom we have in Christ” and then imposes the bondage of the Law in a type of theological “bait and switch” are, in the words of the Savior, a variety “of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
Certain people may rush to judgement and describe these Christians as hypocrites, fortunately we are neither rash nor limited in our vocabulary. We do not know if these people reject the “simplicity that is in Christ” or do not acknowledge Christ. Regardless of the reason, the result, their behavior -their attempts to impose the law- , is the same: They are Judaizers.