Answers to Secular Accusations
Article 1: "Judge Not" - Sound Theology or Sound Bite?
InfoQuest* Response to Article 1
Article 2: Are Christians Judgemental And Unloving?
"Intolerance Is A Beautiful Thing" T-Shirt
"Judge Not" - Sound Theology or Sound Bite?
In response to the article "'Judge Not'"Sound Theology or Sound Bite?" by Rev. Timothy Crater, I was asked if I thought Rev. Crater touched on judging in a loving way and if I agreed with his article.
To answer the first question, I don't think that Rev. Crater went into any depth on a loving way to judge others. I think that he did touch on it, though, as seen where he writes, "In the New Testament, the adherence to righteous judgement continued. Jesus told the disciples, 'If your brother sins against you, go and reprove him in private' (Matt. 18:15). Again, Jesus emphasized the process, which involves the presumption of a moral standard, a personal judgment that it has been violated, and the necessity of gracious confrontation to bring about repentance."
Rev. Crater points out that Jesus says that there is a necessity of "gracious" confrontation. Just to be sure, I looked up "gracious" in the American Heritage dictionary, which reads, "Characterized by kindness and warm courtesy." It’s my opinion that the way to approach someone who I feel I am to judge is to be in a loving and productive manner; pushing a person away with a confrontational tone or manner is never productive.
To answer the second question, do I agree with his article, I believe that the best way to answer that is to start first with "judging those who claim reverence to God" and then cover "judging those who do not claim reverence to God."
Reverend Crater writes, "The relevance of this [judging] process transcends all areas of life. The survival of the physical body depends on its ability to decide which cells are healthy and normal and which should be attacked and removed from the system. The healthy survival of the church (or any body politic) also depends on its ability to discern those elements that contribute to survival and those that cause death."
I think that when we stop ourselves and others from judging, which is an element of free speech, the body of the Church, the community, and the nation is destroyed. Regarding how we are called to judge those in the Church, God clearly defines this process when He speaks through Paul in 1 Corinthians 5. I found that the commentary of the Life Application Bible, New King James Version (Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. of Wheaton, Illionois) explains this very well (the text in brackets following the scripture is the commentary):
1 Cor. 5 "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles - that a man has his father's wife!" (5:1)
[5:1 The church must discipline flagrant sin among its members - such sins, left unchecked, can polarize and paralyze a church. The correction, however, should never be vengeful. Instead, it should be given to help bring about a cure. There was a specific sin in the church, but the Corinthian believers had refused to deal with it. In this case, a man was having an affair with his mother (or stepmother), and the church members were trying to ignore the situation. Paul was telling the church that it had a responsibility to maintain the standards of morality found in God's commandments. God tells us not to judge others. But he also tells us not to tolerate flagrant sin because leaving that sin undisciplined will have a dangerous influence on other believers (5:6).]
"And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." (5:2-5)
[5:5 To "deliver such a one to Satan" means to exclude him from the fellowship of believers. Without the spiritual support of Christians, this man would be left alone with his sin and Satan, and perhaps this emptiness would drive him to repentance. "For the destruction of the flesh" states the hope that the experience would bring him to God to destroy his sinful nature through repentance. Putting someone out of the church should be a last resort in disciplinary action. It should not be done out of vengeance, but out of love, just as parents punish children to correct and restore them. The church's role should be to help, not hurt, offenders, motivating them to repent of their sins and return to the fellowship of the church.]
"Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?" (5:6)
[5:6 Paul was writing to those who wanted to ignore this church problem. They didn't realize that allowing public sin to exist in the church affects all its members. Paul does not expect anyone to be sinless - all believers struggle with sin daily. Instead, he is speaking against those who deliberately sin, feel no guilt, and refuse to repent. This kind of sin cannot be tolerated in the church because it affects others. We have a responsibility to other believers. Yeast (leaven) makes bread dough rise. A little bit affects the whole batch. Blatant sins, left uncorrected, confuse and divide the congregation. While believers should encourage, pray for, and build up one another, they must also be intolerant of sin that jeopardizes the spiritual health of the church.]
"Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." 5:7-8
"I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner - not even to eat with such a person." 5:9-11
[5:10,11 Paul makes it clear that we should not disassociate ourselves from unbelievers - otherwise, we could not carry out Christ's command to tell them about salvation (Matthew 28:18-20). But we are to distance ourselves from the person who claims to be a Christian, yet indulges in sins explicitly forbidden in Scripture and then rationalizes his or her actions. By rationalizing sin, a person harms others for whom Christ died and dims the image of God in himself or herself. A church that includes such people is hardly fit to be the light of the world. To do so would distort the picture of Christ it presents to the world. Church leaders must be ready to correct, in love, for the sake of spiritual unity.]
How do we see the result of not following 1 Corinthians 5 today? Rev. Crater writes, "The biblical expression 'judge not' is widely used nowadays to prevent social conservatives from criticizing secular social reformers who seek to overhaul our traditional mores and culture." At this very moment, there are U.S. church denominations on the verge of splitting because 1 Corinthians 5 is not upheld in their leadership. The following links take you directly to the articles so that you can view the facts for yourself:
If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader (TM) for PDFs, click here:
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Defeated
http://www.layman.org/layman/news/news-from-pcusa/amendment-o-defeated.htm
Click Here for the
text of this article.
Click Here to read this
article in PDF.
Presbyterian Church U.S.A May Split
Click Here to read this
article in PDF.
Theologians Back Homosexual Agenda
Click Here to read
this article in PDF.
To answer the question "judging those who do not claim reverence to
God," of course we should and we must. If we are not to judge, then how can
we have laws or sit in a jury at a trial? Are we not to judge the individuals
and organizations who are pushing to change the law to allow sodomites and
lesbians to marry? Are we not to judge individuals and organizations who are
pushing to change the law to allow men to sodomize boys or have sex with
animals? Individuals and organizations are pushing for these laws today.
Through Moses, God chose judges for Israel, to judge who is right and who is wrong according to God's Word. The judging became too much for Moses to handle alone. God chose people to judge people. This is a Biblical truth going back to the beginning.
Times are changing, yet they are not. Individuals and organizations are fighting for laws that say it's against the law to say sodomy is wrong, pedophilia is wrong, bestiality is wrong. To obey God and judge according to God’s word is a "hate crime." There are those who will always hate the truth to shine on them; they will always be trying to make laws to silence truth. This happens now, it happened in ancient Rome. There was a time of greater morality - now that is changing again. What never changes? God's Word - it is living - it is He. To not judge is to allow all that is good to be trampled and silenced. Our lives and the lives of our children depend on our freedom, ability, and necessity to judge.
Reverend Crater says it well, "Since we are called to discernment, we cannot avoid judging. We must, however, seek to do so properly, always starting with ourselves. Then, as difficult or as unpopular as it may seem, judge we must."
I fully agree with Reverend Crater.
Note: T-shirt text is spelled correctly ("hypocrisy").
Text:
Intolerance is a beautiful thing.
Our founding fathers were intolerant of taxation without representation.
Thomas Jefferson was intolerant of King George III.
Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were intolerant of only men voting.
Winston Churchill was intolerant of Adolph Hitler.
Martin Luther King was intolerant of segregation.
Mother Teresa was intolerant of abortion.
Jesus Christ is intolerant of hypocrisy.