David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in their book Unchurched offer us a definition: Judgmentalism is when we point out something wrong in someone else’s life in such a way that it results in condemnation rather than transformation. Condemnation has a finality to it that closes the door on relationships, leaving no room for God to work through us in other people’s lives. Judging others is abandoning a person when what they really need is for us to embrace them.
Judging and condemning others is therefore the last thing we Christians should want to do, and judgment is not to be our reaction to sin in someone else’s life. As followers of Christ, we are to love unconditionally knowing that God’s love is unconditional, and like God, we are to want the best for others and be willing to act to bring it about. God, while we were yet sinners, acted on our behalf, humbling Himself on a cross for our sake. It is therefore amazing that we could have the spiritual arrogance to set ourselves up as judge over others. Judgment is God’s prerogative, not ours.
What can we do to avoid this all-too-human trap of judging others? Here are some suggestions:
- See people as God sees them and treat people the way Jesus treated them. (think… The woman at the well, the Syro-Phoenician woman; the blind man at Bethsaida; the woman caught in adultery; Zacchaeus; the restoration of Peter; Jesus and the criminal on the cross; the father in Jesus’ Parable of the Lost Son… the list could go on.)
- Express a biblical perspective that emphasizes God’s compassion, mercy, and unbounded love.
- Act out of grace, not law.
- Remember that we are all a “work in progress.”
Father Rob
