The Wrong Way to React to Evil

The Wrong Way to React to Evil
Copyright 2013 by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved

Deliver us, oh Lord, from bitter judgment of other human beings, but do not deliver us from right judgment of evil.

There is sometimes confusion in the church today about the difference between self-righteous hatred and righteous anger. These two states of being may superficially look the same but they are actually polar opposites of each other. The problem is that professed Christians caught up in the “Culture War’s”, both inside and outside the Church, are in danger of becoming more likely to conflate them. In doing so they eliminate a cardinal quality of the very theologically healthy orthodox Christianity they claim to want to see preserved, and that is the quality of humility.

Among those who rigorously contend for the unchanging counsel of Scripture it is getting more and more tempting to become bitter at the change seen in the West, both within and without church walls. In area’s ranging from homosexuality to divorce and re-marriage the metanarratives of our society are rapidly discarding any grounding in the Judeo-Christian underpinnings that gave birth to Western Civilization. Simultaneously Biblical illiteracy combined with “easy-believism” are influencing professed believers in Christ to become more captive to the world’s new ideas of right and wrong then they are to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Much of what was universally considered to be immoral in the church of 50 years ago is being tacitly or openly tolerated today.

In response to this shift the temptation for those who recognize and resist it is to lash out at those in our congregations and in the influencing culture who are on its vanguard. In doing so we risk the age-old problem of hating the sinner as well as the sin. This temptation is exacerbated by the reality that it is becoming more and more difficult to deal with “sin in the camp” in the Christian community today even when we are truly doing everything we can to be in the right spirit. No one wants to be labeled as judgmental in congregations that believe less in church discipline than in “live and let live”. In such congregation’s personal holiness and theological orthodoxy are becoming less preached and lived out by both leaders and laity. This is causing those who want to hold the line to feel an even greater urge towards anger, and even hatred of, individuals rather than the errors those individuals have fallen into.

We must constantly be on guard against the inroads the world is making in the Church, of this there is no doubt, but we must also be just as much on guard against self-righteousness. It is all too easy for one to be biblically right in a patently wrong spirit. Those who feel called to fight the moral decline in both society and the Church must constantly ask the Spirit of God to keep them humble and to give them forbearing love towards both those who do not know better and those who should. “There but for the grace of God go I” must be constantly kept in heart and mind by all who would presume to be conservative watchdogs and reformers at this juncture in the history of Christianity in this part of the world. Otherwise whatever good counsel they might have will be completely ignored by the people whom they claim to want to bring to repentance. In fact if those going astray see more bitterness than redeeming love they will not only continue in the wrong direction but accelerate down the road to spiritual ruin. God forbid that any true Christian should be responsible for such a terrible outcome.

Moral absolutes must be upheld, but this effort absolutely must not be attempted in a prideful, hateful manner. It might be better to do nothing then do anything in such a Christ-dishonoring and ultimately destructive way.