Today, you get to call someone judgmental when they have an opinion on something. Even if that opinion isn’t really an opinion but is backed up by facts and truth. To declare anything—of a negative value—is to be deemed judgmental. Unless of course you crush some of our cultural idols. Then bring out the pitchforks. It’s okay to have a very strong opinion against someone who has a strong opinion. It’s fine to make the judgment of calling someone a judgmental hypocrite.
I understand it when those with a non-Christian worldview take this posture. It still doesn’t hold up logically, but I’m not shocked to see this inconsistency. What baffles me is when Christians adopt a mushy view of truth. Now granted we can all be a bit quick or too sharp in our application of Christian principles. While our culture can be a bit quick to take the posture of 2 Pac (“Only God can judge me) the church can be a bit quick in taking up the mantle of Job’s friends—those miserable counselors who said right things at wrong times. Yet, we must acknowledge that if we’re going to dismiss folks who make declarations about the state of another person soul, then we’re going to be hard-pressed to keep many portions of are Bible. Consider this from the apostle Peter about Simon the Magician:
“May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” –Acts 8:21-23
Notice how “judgy” Peter is of the state of Simon’s soul. Can you imagine how Simon’s twitter feed would have been torched if he wrote these words of Simon?
“How dare you Peter! Only God can judge. We don’t know Simon’s heart. We don’t know his motivations. He was just doing what came from his Gentile culture. It was custom to pay for magic tricks. Give the guy a break!”
And this isn’t just the case with Peter. You’ve got several places all throughout Scripture where either a figure in a biblical story will say things as Peter did, prophets will make sharp judgments, or even the biblical writer will say of a king that he was “exceedingly wicked”. Those are judgments. And they are inspired. So as we think through making judgments and issues of discernment we have to have a place in our theology for language like Peter’s.
I understand that we are not inspired. Our words and our judgments are not holy writ. But when we use and accurately apply the Scriptures we do have authority on which to speak and make judgments. It isn’t our judgment. It’s the Lord’s. We cannot surrender this to our culture. Because if we do what you end up with is a culture of outrage where every opinion (and that’s all it is) carries equal weight. We need words like those of the apostle Peter. And we need to know how to accurately and lovingly use them.
And just to be clear, I don’t believe the biblical writers actually were judgmental. I think we’ve hijacked that term. There is such a thing as been wrongly condemnatory and having judgmental attitudes. But making truth claims doesn’t fall into that category. As those indwelled by the Spirit of the living God we really truly can make accurate and discerning judgments—even those like Peter made of Simon the Magician. And that’s not being judgmental. It’s applying the Scriptures.
Let’s not surrender this.
