Standard Christian Caution
That’s a really apt phrase coined up this morning during a discussion with Fergus.
It started with discussing a controversial music video. I went on to say that I think modern Christians shy away so much from judging that it’s reached a point of being a fault. When there is something that is really wrong, and warrants speaking out against, we tend to shy away from doing so by suddenly becoming very relativist.
I agree that it's a fine line between forming an opinion and handing down a judgment for matters of right and wrong. In fact, I think that they’re both two ends of the same continuum. One way of resolving this was to say that it's ok to judge ideas (eg the idea of a fat Christianity or immodest entertainment), but you stop short of judging the person behind it. Granted, you can’t really separate the two but you can at least make a cosmetic difference. ‘I think that China Wine is unnecessarily immodest' and 'I think that Sun is being a really bad example' both essentially express the same opinion, but the first statement tries to avoid talking directly about Sun.
It started with discussing a controversial music video. I went on to say that I think modern Christians shy away so much from judging that it’s reached a point of being a fault. When there is something that is really wrong, and warrants speaking out against, we tend to shy away from doing so by suddenly becoming very relativist.
I agree that it's a fine line between forming an opinion and handing down a judgment for matters of right and wrong. In fact, I think that they’re both two ends of the same continuum. One way of resolving this was to say that it's ok to judge ideas (eg the idea of a fat Christianity or immodest entertainment), but you stop short of judging the person behind it. Granted, you can’t really separate the two but you can at least make a cosmetic difference. ‘I think that China Wine is unnecessarily immodest' and 'I think that Sun is being a really bad example' both essentially express the same opinion, but the first statement tries to avoid talking directly about Sun.
Yet, the opposite of Standard Christian Caution leads you into Judgmental Obnoxious Opinion territory, which is probably a greater temptation for me. I mean, what's not to like about unleashing a whirlwind of blistering words upon small-minded and defensive people?
Don't you judge me for that, you hear?
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