Judgment Day? That's a matter of opinion

Spirituality Column #10
January 16, 2007
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper

Judgment Day? That’s a matter of opinion
By Bob Walters
Author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The most crippling “doctrine” visited upon Christianity is the one that suspends individual judgment. Atheists and postmodernists love it.

You know the line … “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” and its several iterations in the Gospels of Mathew (7:1), Luke (6:37) and John (7:24).

This truly great advice, directly from Christ, is one of the most dangerously misapplied verses in all scripture. Non-Christians and misguided Christians wield that line against believers, and against the absoluteness of God’s truth.

Judge not. I mean, you wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, would you? All that God stuff doesn’t give you the right to judge me!

Well, judge this. Suppose I’m a drug dealer. You had better have the right to judge me; not for my sake, but for yours. “Judge not” doesn’t mean you can get away with being blind.

Here’s a news flash: without judgment, you die. Without judgment’s first-cousin discernment, you can’t know God. Without God, there is no right and wrong.

Judgment, really, is how we survive. Discernment is how we know God. That’s why God gave each of us a brain, for judgment and discernment.

Even an atheist who shouts down Christian judgment will ignorantly “judge” the “wrongness” of a Christian holding the “opinion” that God exists, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the Holy Spirit abides with us. That same atheist won’t see his own wrongness of heart, emptiness of head … nor the plank in his own eye.

You are the one with mush for brains, you silly Christian believer! An atheist’s highest belief in the universe is the sovereignty of his own intellect.

If that were the case (thankfully it’s not), I’d wonder about the universe.

Postmodernism is a big word but easily defined. It means this: absolute truth does not exist and your own opinion is sovereign. Right and wrong are in the eye of the beholder. I don’t remember ever meeting anyone who actually said he/she was a postmodernist, presumably because the position is so morally vapid, intellectually unsound and, in general, just plain silly. But they are out there. Everywhere.

Judgment is inconvenient and un-postmodernist, but very Christ-like. Think Christ wasn’t judgmental? Better read the New Testament again and this time, pay attention. He IS the Judge, and the Truth, and the Light, and a lot of other stuff.

Atheists can’t fathom God, and postmodernists can’t fathom truth. God the empty promise, and truth the matter of opinion, are what you get when judgment is absent.

Love God and love others, but for heaven’s sake, show some judgment.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is not a drug dealer.