Justice and Judgment

In both the Common Grounds Sunday School class and in the C.H.O.W. Bible study the conversations keep coming back to similar questions: How does forgiveness work? How do we share grace and still stand on our convictions? How do we understand when it is appropriate to keep someone accountable?


Recently we came back to this question while studying in the book of Obadiah. Obadiah is not as easy book to get your thoughts around. It is a one chapter book that is basically an oracle against the nation of Edom after the nation of Israel is drug off into Babylonian captivity. Upon initially beginning to prepare for this study I was frustrated. Ancient nationalistic prophecies seem to have little application to the way that I or the people around me live our faith out day to day. So, I picked out a couple of key themes that the book presented and hoped that one or two questions might draw enough interest to have a meaningful discussion.


The issue that we seemed to spend an awful lot of time on was, “What is the difference between standing for truth and justice and being judgmental?” It is not as easy a question to answer as it might appear. Especially when we start thinking about what it means to be missionaries at our jobs and in our neighborhoods.


One conclusion we came to is that standing for truth and justice is standing with God and others, and advocating for them. Christians are at their best when they are standing against injustice. Recently, diverse parts of the Christian family in the United States have united to work against the AIDS epidemic. People as diverse as mainline liberals and evangelical megachurch pastors, and national figures as diverse as Jesse Helms and Bono are uniting to move the church toward compassion and justice in regard to this issue. In the past, followers of Christ led the way in the civil rights movement, helping Jews escape the holocaust, and universal education of children and establishing child labor laws in the U.S.


Another conclusion we made is that Christian are at their worst when they are being judgmental. And, that over people and against them. When we judge we are not identifying with others, we are vilifying them for being NOT LIKE US. Both Christians and non-Christians are skilled at being judgmental. We combat this by being creatively proactive with our convictions, instead of shouting down condemnation upon those (especially that are not Christians) that we disagree with. Against abortion? Adopt. Against gay marriage? Make friends with gay folks and shower them with love and compassion. Against the war in Iraq. Invite solders to your dinner table and listen to their stories. Come up with relational, creative and humble ways to share your Christian convictions, instead of being a part of the masses of people that condemn others that think and believe differently from them at a distance.