Revisiting the "chief of sinners"

As promised (or threatened, depending on your point of view), I turned last week's "chief of sinners" blog entry into a Dallas Morning News column. I basically rewrote it for a more secular audience. I've gotten some really good feedback on it, but also some negative response, mostly from people who thought I had lost my moral mind with what one angry reader called "white guilt."

If I had it to write over again, I would have made it more clear than I did that the idea of calling oneself the "chief of sinners" is not to say that one has no right to pass any kind of judgment on another. That would be what I described in the column as taking "license for moral idiocy."

We all have to make judgments of all kinds every day just to get through life. It is right and proper to listen to what Jeremiah Wright (and Barack Obama, and John McCain, and your own mama) has to say, weigh it against evidence, logic and principle, and pass judgment on it. We are required to pass political judgment (at least) on the Rev. Wright's message, and even his worth as a Christian leader. Most everybody who has followed this controversy has done so, and obviously people have taken different sides. Some have judged him negatively, others positively. Most all have rendered a judgment of some sort.

We are permitted to say "that man is wrong;" we are permitted to say "don't listen to that man, because he teaches false or malicious things." What we Christians believe we are not are not permitted to say is "...and therefore he's going to hell." Because how do we know how God will ultimately weigh his sins against everything else? Only God has the sufficient knowledge to pass ultimate judgment on the disposition of his soul.

I've mentioned before the French proverb, "To understand all is to forgive all." It is a caution against taking empathy too far. It is hard to know how much to temper justice with mercy in any given situation. It calls for wisdom and discernment. And for humility in the face of our own limitations.

What I find so frustrating about people who shout "You're being judgmental!" when they encounter a judgment with which they disagree is the failure to recognize that making judgments are a necessary part of our individual and collective moral lives. If Jesus meant that we were never meant to make any judgments ever about others, he didn't live by his own commandment, so narrowly interpreted. Sure, you say, but he was God. Yes, but neither did the Apostles, on evidence of the Bible. St. Paul calls himself the chief of sinners, yet he laid down the law against adulterers, drunkards and other lowlifes. Surely, then, a more nuanced understanding of what it means to pass judgment on another person is required.

To get back to the column, I am certain that Mohammed Atta was a profoundly evil man, and he deserves to be in hell. But I can't say for sure that he is there, or that any particular person is there. I don't have the knowledge to say so, nor do I have the right. Because for all I know, I deserve hell more than he does, because I have been given the saving grace of knowledge of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who is Jesus Christ. I know him personally, and I know what he requires of me. In that regard, Atta was a miserable pauper. As Scripture says, to whom much is given, much is expected. By that standard, it will not go easy for me on the Day of Judgment.

I know I said I'm sick and tired of the comboxes turning into bitching about whether or not I'm judgmental. I still am. That adds nothing to the conversation. Of course I'm judgmental -- but I hope I'm judgmental in the right way, and am growing less judgmental in the sinful way. But that's me. I would welcome a discussion about the concept of judgment, particularly in a Christian context. Let's keep it from getting personal below, and talk about the idea.