Hi, just one thought about this I wanted to share. It’s certainly Christian to love your enemies, or to love the sinner even as you condemn the sinful behavior. I agree we shouldn’t take any pleasure in enforcing rules or imposing consequences. I’m not sure I see that as the same thing as judgement, though. Judgement, in the way the word is commonly used, means having an opinion about whether a behavior is harmful or not. And you’re using it in that way when you say that you were “judgmental” about people for various things - you’re not saying that you literally issued a legal judgement against them, you’re saying you disapproved of their actions. You had an opinion.
But I think those kinds of judgements are necessary to society, and moving away from them has been detrimental to us all. Some actions ARE objectively better than others. Murder, child abuse, theft, etc. truly are harmful. But if we’re not willing to say so, unequivocally, we start to slip into moral relativism. What do we teach our kids if we refuse to say that yes, being sexually promiscuous is bad because it’s harmful to you? Or murder is wrong, even if you don’t agree with the actions of the company the person is CEO of? Or theft is not ok, even if the person you’re stealing from is richer than you?
There’s a difference between hating someone for having different opinions than you or wishing them dead, and having opinions about what actions are harmful, yet we call both of these things “judgement”. You’re completely right that every human has innate value, and we should feel sad about having to enforce rules. But if you refuse to condemn harmful actions, society descends into chaos. Today we have teenagers who think that theft from richer people is morally ok, assassination is ok if you disagree with someone, and sexual promiscuity is not only ok, but is morally superior to more traditional sexual beliefs. How is that helping us? In my opinion we need MORE judgement of actions and ideas, even as we try to understand and even love the people (including ourselves) who don’t always live up to those ideals.
Hi, just one thought about this I wanted to share. It’s certainly Christian to love your enemies, or to love the sinner even as you condemn the sinful behavior. I agree we shouldn’t take any pleasure in enforcing rules or imposing consequences. I’m not sure I see that as the same thing as judgement, though. Judgement, in the way the word is commonly used, means having an opinion about whether a behavior is harmful or not. And you’re using it in that way when you say that you were “judgmental” about people for various things - you’re not saying that you literally issued a legal judgement against them, you’re saying you disapproved of their actions. You had an opinion.
But I think those kinds of judgements are necessary to society, and moving away from them has been detrimental to us all. Some actions ARE objectively better than others. Murder, child abuse, theft, etc. truly are harmful. But if we’re not willing to say so, unequivocally, we start to slip into moral relativism. What do we teach our kids if we refuse to say that yes, being sexually promiscuous is bad because it’s harmful to you? Or murder is wrong, even if you don’t agree with the actions of the company the person is CEO of? Or theft is not ok, even if the person you’re stealing from is richer than you?
There’s a difference between hating someone for having different opinions than you or wishing them dead, and having opinions about what actions are harmful, yet we call both of these things “judgement”. You’re completely right that every human has innate value, and we should feel sad about having to enforce rules. But if you refuse to condemn harmful actions, society descends into chaos. Today we have teenagers who think that theft from richer people is morally ok, assassination is ok if you disagree with someone, and sexual promiscuity is not only ok, but is morally superior to more traditional sexual beliefs. How is that helping us? In my opinion we need MORE judgement of actions and ideas, even as we try to understand and even love the people (including ourselves) who don’t always live up to those ideals.
I agree with almost everything you said.
My point, in a nutshell: we should judge actions and ideas, not people.