Criticism and love

My responses on this RCA email list, edited so it makes (sort of) sense to you:

I'm convinced more and more (given evangelical Christians' knee-jerk-reaction claims of ignorance, uncertainty, and a false humility, and given such positive response to writers like Brian McLaren) that Jesus would have been dismissed by 90% of evangelical Christians today for His Matthew 23 confrontational tirade alone. They would have walked away, disgusted that anyone could be so un-Christ-like. Ironic, huh? Now, there's a time and a place for that kind of thing, but there IS a time and a place for it. It's not wholesale verboten. At the same time, I agree that much of the dismissive attitudes and interruption tactics of talk shows is atrocious (though I've never seen O'Reilly). There's a difference between stating truth confidently and running roughshod over people.

Criticism can be done without self-righteousness (Gal 6:1; iron sharpens iron). Conversely, any criticism can be met with a self-righteous, "Don't criticize like that!" The words on the screen/page don't give away the heart attitude as often as we think they do.

Under-handed, satirical criticism is not necessarily self-righteous. Even much more directly done, this can be free of self-righteousness. "Look at 'em walking around in their long robes, big Bibles, long prayers, long faces, saying 'look how holy I am' - fools and blind! Whitewashed tombs!"



And separately, on politics derailing us from Christ's agenda: Let the Bible define your politics, not vice versa. But what does the Bible SAY?