The Christian Sin of Disrespect
One of my previous employers set aside one day a year for “sensitivity training.” It was designed, in part, to help people to learn to accept and respect the beliefs of others in the workplace. Toward the end of one of these sessions I asked the facilitator, “What should I do if I don’t accept and respect someone’s beliefs?” She responded, “Well, why wouldn’t you accept and respect another person’s beliefs?” I replied, “Because some people’s beliefs are wrong.”
After she regained her composure she continued, “But what if a person sincerely believes that something is true and you believe that it is untrue. Can’t you just respect the person’s position on the matter and ignore your differences?” My reply, “In some cases I can do so, but in others I can’t. For example, I am a Christian. I believe that people who reject Jesus Christ as their Savior are destined for eternal separation from God and the suffering that separation entails. As a Christian I am required to love all other humans, which means I am required to seek the best for each one of them. As a consequence, I am required to notify others when I believe that they are in danger of rejecting Jesus’ salvation. If I truly believe that they are in danger, and I don’t tell them, my silence shows extreme disrespect for them personally. It is a disrespect that is far worse than just believing that they are wrong.
Here is an analogy: When my son was about eleven years old he stated that he was going to go outside and play on a newly frozen pond. I had just heard an announcement on the radio him that the new winter ice was not sturdy enough to support someone walking on it yet. I relayed that information to my son who retorted, “Those people at the radio station don’t know anything about the ice. I looked at the ice when I was coming home from school. I’ve been playing on ice since I was a kid and I know safe ice when I see it.” I responded by forbidding him to go onto the ice and informing him that, because I cared about him, I would do whatever I could to prevent him from doing so. His parting response was, “You treat me like a little kid.”
The fact is that I was not disrespecting his belief that the ice was safe to walk on. I was willing to believe that he thought that the ice was safe. On the other hand, the potential outcomes were too dangerous for me to ignore. In the same way, if someone tells me that the notion of an eternal afterlife is uninteresting or stupid, my own beliefs and love for that person require me to try to explain why I believe s/he is wrong.
I am aware that it is important to understand how, when and where to challenge another person’s beliefs. Ephesians 4:1-2 tells Christians: “…to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Christians are admonished to behave with humility, compassion and love in order to create a context that nurtures credibility for their beliefs.
The Christian Sin of Silence
North Americans live in a strange society. We often lie (or fail to tell the truth) to one another in the name of respect and harmony. In fact, this fake harmony deprives us of information that we need to make ourselves better people. Sadly, many churches are no better. Christians claim to look to the Bible for their model for relationships, but they pick and choose among Biblical principles in order to avoid confrontation and accountability. Peter and Paul were unquestionably two of the major leaders of the early church and were champions for the truth about God and Jesus. Nevertheless, hear Paul describe an encounter with Peter:
When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? (Galatians 2:11-14, NIV)
Imagine this happening in a Christian church in North America today. Nevertheless, this particular confrontation led to a clarification of church doctrine that has persisted to this day, and has prevented many later disputes among Christians.
There is a difference between someone standing up for truth when motivated by love for the other person, and someone who knows that he is right and just wants to win an argument. God’s wish for the body of Christ is stated in Ephesians 4:13: “[That] we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Unity in faith and knowledge don’t happen as a result of respecting and accepting important disagreements in any society, especially a church. Unity of faith and knowledge arise out of respectful and thoughtful reflection and discussion.
Sadly, many of us know people who claim to be Christians but leave out the “respectful and thoughtful reflection and discussion” step. They feel compelled to talk about the failures of others. When other people react negatively to them they say, “Well, I’m just telling the truth.” They need to understand the meaning of the biblical concept of speaking the truth in love. This principle tells us that the truth is important, but that we should withhold it until we are satisfied that our own motives are not mean or selfish.
The Christian Sin of Speaking up
Revealing negative information about another person to others is just plain wrong unless biblical principles are followed. (Matthew 18:15-20) The Bible calls it “gossip.” When someone starts to tell me something negative about another person, I generally respond by asking whether he has confronted the other person face-to-face about the matter. My purpose is to get the accuser plugged in to the Biblical guidelines for accountability; all confrontation about possible wrong-doing in the church should begin with a private discussion.
In conclusion, the Bible clearly calls for both harmony and truth telling in the Christian community. However, the mediation of Christian love is an essential component for harmonizing them. It is unacceptable to disregard either harmony or confrontation. We are required by our principles to live with the discomfort of balancing the two. Obviously, human beings are always going to be tempted to respond to their differences through fight or flight. In this context, that means that they are going to use the truth as a weapon or avoid confrontation completely. Both responses are Biblically wrong.
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Great post! You started it out perfect and kept me reading. Christians should just love everybody.