Now let me get this disclaimer out of the way first: I know very well how easy it is for me to be judgmental towards those who I perceive as judgmental. This awareness leads me to suppress how I feel, since I have a hard time figuring out how to engage in dialog on certain issues that I feel strongly about without also coming across as judgmental. I have yet to find the balance that I think is necessary for productive, open conversation about many important issues that lie at the intersection between my faith and our culture.
The Barna Group recently performed a survey that showed that 16 to 29-year-olds' perception of Christians is overwhelmingly negative, with 87% seeing Christians as judgmental and 85% as hypocritical. Rather than ranting about how my experience shows that we as Christians often deserve that perception (which I suspect isn't limited to that age bracket), I'll try to be more productive and just quote Bonhoeffer's thoughts on Matthew 7:1-12 here.
Page numbers are those corresponding to my edition, linked in the first paragraph, but I've linked the references to a different edition that is partially viewable at books.google.com, when available. You should be able to read the entire chapter without exceeding the "partial viewing" limitations. My insertions are bracketed and any bold emphases are mine (italics are Bonhoeffer's).
Starting off on page 183, Bonhoeffer summarizes his point:
...this raises the question of the relation between the Christians and their non-Christian neighbors. Does their separation from the rest of society confer on them special rights and privileges? Do Christians enjoy power, gifts and standards of judgement which qualify them to exert a peculiar authority over others? How easy it would have been for the disciples to adopt a superior attitude, to pass unqualified condemnation on the rest of the world, and to persuade themselves that this was the will of God! That is why Jesus has to make it clear beyond all doubt that such misunderstandings would seriously imperil their discipleship. The disciples are not to judge. If they do so, they will themselves be judged by God.Then Bonhoeffer goes on to elaborate on Jesus Christ's position as mediator, not only between the Christian and God the Father, but also between the Christian and himself, between the Christian and his Christian brothers, and between the Christian and non-Christians, on pages 183-184:
The source of the disciple's life lies exclusively in his fellowship with Jesus Christ. He possesses his righteousness only within that association, never outside it. That is why his righteousness can never become an objective criterion to be applied at will.... It is not an approved standard of righteous living that separates a follower of Christ from the unbeliever, but it is Christ who stands between them.... the disciple can meet the non-disciple only as a man to whom Jesus comes. Here alone Christ's fight for the soul of the unbeliever, his call, his love, his grace and his judgement comes into its own. Discipleship does not afford us a point of vantage from which to attack others; we come to them only with an unconditional offer of fellowship, with the single-mindedness of the love of Jesus.Bonhoeffer continues by addressing the "love the sinner, hate the sin" approach on page 184, pointing out that we have no need to work on "hating the sin," if we love as Christ loved:
But the love of Christ for the sinner in itself is the condemnation of sin, is his expression of extreme hatred of sin. The disciples of Christ are to love unconditionally. Thus they may effect what their own divided and judiciously and conditionally offered love never could achieve, namely the radical condemnation of sin.In the next paragraph:
If the disciples make judgements of their own, they set up standards of good and evil.... If I condemn [another person's] evil actions... I remove him from the judgement of Christ and subject him to human judgement. But I bring God's judgement upon my head, for I then do not live any more on and out of the grace of Jesus Christ, but out of my knowledge of good and evil which I hold on to.In the next paragraph:
Judgement is the forbidden objectivization of the other person which destroys single-minded love. I am not forbidden to have my own thoughts about the other person, to realize his shortcomings. But only to the extent that it offers to me an occasion for forgiveness and unconditional love, as Jesus proves to me.In the next paragraph:
Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.... If when we judged others, our real motive was to destroy evil, we should look for evil where it is certain to be found, and that is in our own hearts. But if we are on the look-out for evil in others, our real motive is obviously to justify ourselves, for we are seeking to escape punishment for our own sins by passing judgement on others... But Christ's disciples have no rights of their own or standards of right and wrong which they could enforce with other people; they have received nothing but Christ's fellowship. Therefore the disciple is not to sit in judgement over the fellow-man because he would wrongly usurp the jurisdiction.Wrapping up, Bonhoeffer :
[The disciples] must admit that in no circumstances do they possess any rights or powers over others, and that they have no direct access to them. The only way to reach others is through [Jesus Christ] in whose hands they are themselves like all other men.... The disciples are taught to pray, and so they learn that the only way to reach others is by praying to God.And finally, Bonhoeffer denies any hierarchy of sin:
The evil in the other person is exactly the same evil as in ourselves. There is only one judgment, one law, and one grace.So how do we take the words of our Lord Jesus Christ when he says "do not judge others"? How do we attempt to correct our neighbor without judging?
I think our (myself included) approach should look more like:
- Prayerfully meditate on our own fallenness and need for Christ's grace.
- Pray for the the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to our own sin.
- Pray for our own selfish motives to be burned away to leave us more like Christ.
- Pray for the Holy Spirit to open our neighbor's eyes, not to that which we think we see wrong in them, but to that which Christ would reveal to them.
- Pray for our words to be not our own, but those that the Holy Spirit would speak through us.
- Confess openly, honestly, and humbly our own brokenness on the same issue that we seek to correct.
- Finally, when discussing the issue, we should ask non-leading, open-ended questions, and never assert our own (or others') opinion as fact.
