Posted by Helen on: 01.20.2007 /
I want to pick up on a discussion that began in the Church Rater blog comments:
Rachel: Going to the mall often gives me a borderline panic attack. For one thing, I don’t particularly like shopping, especially for clothes. Also, there are too many stores and too many choices. There are so many people and they all seem to have a frenzied air. And since I have become more aware of extreme poverty issues, I tend to see all the people with all their shopping bags and want to freak out and yell, “People are starving, don’t you all care?” And then I feel bad for judging everybody and besides, I’m there too.
Me: Yeah…I go through that “I want to…and then I feel bad for judging people” cycle often. In a variety of situations. Including church.
Benjamin: Helen, Rachel—so then do you two feel bad for judging yourself for judging other people? Just curious… Cause what I’ve been sort of coming to realize is that it’s okay for me to judge myself, and judge other people, *very* *very* gently—like to think of myself and other people’s lives as maybe a 10X10 grid with 100 little squares, and down in the bottom right square—down in that one tiny little square, I can judge me and others, with the majority of me standing back in the other 99 saying things like “I’m loved. You’re loved. Progress not perfection. Don’t have to solve it now. Don’t have to fix it all. Relax. chill. Chicken Little was very mostly wrong. etc. etc.
And, moreoever, … as I grow able to do this with myself, I find it becomes … easier/more natural with other people. That is, the vast majority of my toxic judging of other people is somehow growing in the soil of my overwhelmingly negative attitude toward myself.
Rachel: Ben, I do think a certain amount of judgment is OK and even good. I guess I’m trying to navigate the balance between being critical and uncharitable toward others (or myself) and being prophetic. Because as a follower of Christ, I am supposed to challenge the status quo and try to speak for those without a voice. So my life and my words should be in some way an indictment of The System. And that is a type of judgment.
For example, if people hear me giving my spiel about fairly traded coffee and that makes them feel that they should start to buy fair trade too, then that is a good thing. But I don’t want to beat myself or others up with that “oughty-should hammer” you’ve talked about, Ben. It’s just a matter of getting into dialogue with people and challenging each other and trying to know more and do better. Not because we feel like crap but because we care.
Me (Im adding this – this was not on Church Rater): Benjamin, I think it’s a great insight to realize that your view of others is deeply connected with your view of yourself. That’s very true of me. Hey you might like to read God Knows My Heart by Christine Wicker. I think you could relate, because a big part of her journey has been the struggle to move away from the very negative view of herself which was encouraged by her conservative Christian upbringing.
I think some people are more affected than others by being told negative things and that’s why not everyone can understand why some of us feel it can be so damaging.
Anyway I love your approach – of sort of ‘retraining yourself’ into a kinder more gentler form of ‘judging’. I agree that that form is fine. Rachel’s description that she feels like screaming implies that she wasn’t being at all kind and gentle and I agree that that type is not good.
I don’t think when Jesus said to take the plank out of our own eyes he meant, be really negative about yourself. I think he’d be fine with kind and gentle judging for those people who are like ‘bruised reeds’ – since Isaiah says (and according to the gospels, Jesus quoted it like it was about him) he wouldn’t crush a bruised reed (Isaiah 42:3 and Matthew 12:2)
Comment by: Ari
1good stuff. I often get frustrated with the whole “don’t judge” camp because we all judge, every day, all the time, we make judgments. I think the tension is, as Ben mentioned, to judge rightly, not terribly often, carefully, graciously, right along with judging ourselves and preferably judging situations establishments and ideas rather than people. Basically, judging people is judgmentAL and implies that we know their intent and can see their heart.
I’m a “judger”, it’s part of my personality. I’m also a thinker not a feeler. So I find the balance particularly difficult esp. since I’m also the kind of person who challenges convention pretty much all the time hehe.
Comment by: Helen
2Thanks for your comment, Ari.
You’re so right; we do all judge all the time. As you and Benjamin said, the key is to judge rightly i.e. carefully and graciously.
Isn’t that what conventions are made for – to be challenged? ;-)
Comment by: April Terry
3I think it is necessary that we don’t confuse discernment with judgement. Discernment is an important part of life and spiritual growth as well. We have to be able to discern someone’s intent as well as their truthfulness, but we can’t let that color us into judgement. In my mind, we cross the line into judgement when we can only see people based on our orginal assessment and we can’t move beyond that. If we can discern where a person is at right now, and then continue to see them for what their potential is, then we have moved beyond judgementalism and into a discerning view.
When, in Matthew, it is stated, “Judge not, so that you may not be judged.” The word Judge is translated as meaning to form an opinion. When the word discern is used, it means to know or to understand something.
In other words, Jesus was saying not to make up your mind about people, but to seek to understand them.
Comment by: Rachel
4That’s a great distinction, April!
Comment by: Helen
5April wrote:
Thanks April – I like how you put that.
Comment by: benjamin ady
6Megan calls it “putting people in the bad box or the good box.” And then, of course, they can leap back and forth from one box to the other, sometimes with amazing rapidity.