Neither Condemning Nor Condoning: The Church and Judgment

#5 on the Dan Kimball list of problems that non-Christians have with the church:

The church is judgmental and negative.

Let me address what I think the statement means and then respond to what the church is, isn't, and is meant to be.

What I hear being said in this statement is that church people are jerks. They think they're better than other people, they think their crap doesn't stink, they condemn others for sin while ignoring their own.

Jesus put it this way, when he preached at religious folks in his time:
"Woe to you teachers of the law...you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean."

All that to say, the church can be a hypocritical jerky bunch.

That said, that isn't what the church is called to be.

That said, they aren't called to "live and let live" either.

Unfortunately, when we bring the word judgment into the discussion, we misuse it quite a bit. People often say they don't want to judge, when what they mean is condemn.

For example: Someone offers me milk or rat poison to drink along with my cookie. I do want to make a judgment here. If I don't, I'm dead.

Now, that may seem silly, but we apply this all the time to matters of faith and spirit.

When someone says they don't want to be judgmental, what they mean is that they don't want to be a jerk. This is a good thing. Jesus never called anyone to be a jerk.

However, many take this to the extreme of having no real opinion on anything, or having one but being careful to insist that it isn't the "right" one. After all, right and wrong come off as judgmental.

But we are meant to judge. Jesus judged the teachers of the law when he called them hypocrites. Non-Christians judge the church when they call it negative. These are judgments, and it's ok to make them.

Part of the problem is the verse in the Bible that reads "judge not, lest you be judged." This has been misinterpreted to mean "who am I to say what's right?" and "live and let live".

What the spirit of the text means is "don't condemn". Don't treat a person as if they were defined by their sin. Don't lord it over someone else and refuse to forgive them. Don't go around acting like you're better than everyone else. That's what "judge not" means.

It doesn't mean don't make judgments. Killing is wrong. Hate is wrong. Lying is wrong. Even Jesus said that. He spoke out against divorce and adultery and greed and hatred and selfishness and pride and hypocrisy. He judged people's actions all the time. What he didn't do was condemn. But he also didn't condone.

When Jesus comes across a woman caught in the act of adultery, he speaks two key things to her; "I do not condemn you" and "go and stop sinning". He judges her actions, but not herself. He treats her with love while speaking a judgment against adultery.

The Bible calls this "speaking the truth in love" and it is one of the key commands given to the church. Far too many of us have been speaking the truth, but not in love. These are the people that got us the "judgmental and negative" reputation. But too many more of us have overcompensated by thinking we show love by not speaking the truth. To follow the example of Jesus is to do both.

So, to sum up:

Judgmental can be a good or bad thing, depending upon how it is defined.
The church is called to speak against sin, with an eye towards itself as much as others.
The church is NOT called to sit in condemnation of others while letting itself off the hook.

In fact, the people that Jesus is most judgmental of are religious people. The people that Paul calls to "admonish one another" are church people. Our behavior toward those who don't know Jesus and the way he calls us to live is supposed to begin with love. As those we meet desire to know what it means to follow Jesus, then we begin to share what beliefs and behaviors go with being a follower of Jesus. But we are never called to speak out against "sex in Hollywood" while ignoring the sexual misconduct of leaders in the church.

During this time of Easter, Christians are reminded of the scripture that reads: "God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not die, but have new life. God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him."

Having new life brings with it a new way of living. That means a judgment on the old way of living. But, more importantly, it means salvation from all that the old life couldn't offer and an end to the condemnation that the old life might bring.

As Christians, we are called to a new way and truth and life that is found only in Jesus Christ. We offer that to those we meet and we seek to live it out ourselves. We address the sin in our own lives openly and honestly and address the sin in others' lives with love and forgiveness. Anything less is less than the church should be.