Why Are Christians So Judgmental?
I promise I will get around to answering that question, but let’s examine the question itself first.
If you type “Why are Christians so” into various search engines, you will find that the results don’t finish the sentence with something positive, like “Why are Christians so loving?” Or “Why are Christians so merciful?” In fact, I’ve been asked why Christians are so judgmental point blank.
Most of us have begun checking our internal generalizations and biases when questions like these pop into our heads, so that is a good place to begin when asking this. For instance, you would never want to ask, “Why are BLANK so BLANK?” where the first blank is a religious group, ethnic group, gender, nationality, etc. and the second blank is a negative stereotype. Questions like these betray our prejudices and out lack of insight and relationship with the group we’re speaking about.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m pretty sure I know what you mean when asking why Christians are so judgmental, and I really do want to take a stab at it … but ….
The question itself carries a thread of judgment. That is, we tend to feel judgmental toward people we perceive to be judgmental. At least I do. I confess to feeling judgmental toward someone from whom I perceive to have been judged. Probably, it’s a good idea to recognize this hypocritical paradox when we judge the judgmental. It gives me just a bit more sympathy when I catch myself judging someone who has judged me.
You’re probably thinking I’m not going to take the question seriously now that I seem to have gutted the soundness of it, but I really will answer it. Just one more thing.
When you say “Christian,” who do you mean? Do you mean to ask about the judgmental spirit of Mother Theresa, or Martin Luther King Jr., or Oscar Romero or Dorothy Day or Shane Claiborne? Probably not. Are there Christians you know personally that you would never accuse of being judgmental? Then let’s dial back the scope of the accusation to “some Christians,” and better yet to ask about specific people in specific situations.
So, after checking our stereotypes and biases, examining (admitting?) our own tendency toward judgmentalism, the real question we might be asking is “Why do some Christians come off as opinionated and negative?”
Leaving aside the fact that people who hold deep convictions about any number of issues can come off as opinionated and negative, I’ll try to answer this from the vantage point of a Christian “insider” who also sympathizes with that question. While these are not excuses for mean-spirited or ignorant judgmentalism that you experience coming from my tribe, they are perspectives on why you might experience some Christians this way.
Perspective 1: Christians are broken people. Making a Christian commitment is like joining Alcoholics Anonymous (in fact, AA has borrowed much from the Christian tradition.) “Hello, my name is Scott and I’m a sin-a-holic.” Jesus said that he did not come for people who were well put together but those who were messed up, so those who are drawn to Jesus tend to carry deep flaws. If you sense a measure of anger, resentment, hatred or bitterness coming from someone who follows Jesus, you may be seeing things accurately. But remember that they are on a journey. It was the recognition of our weakness, wounds and inadequacies that drew many of us to Christ in the first place. Some things have been healed, but most of our junk is still in process.
Let me make this one a bit more personal. If you’ve felt unfairly judged by me or attacked when you’ve said something or offered a contradictory opinion to mine, I’m sorry. The dismantling of my arrogance is a work in progress. Please forgive me.
Perspective 2: Dogma. In most religious traditions there is a gravitational pull toward dogma. Christianity is no different. We want clarity and certainty about complex matters and those of us serious about our faith draw hard and fast lines where nuance is called for. It makes us feel safe to have clearly defined boundaries and beliefs, and we might feel threatened when those things are questioned. I see this tendency in nationalism as well as in most faith traditions. When a central tenet of our country’s founding beliefs are attacked, we rush to its defense as if the sovereignty of our nation depends on us putting down some fair question being raised about our national identity or beliefs. Dogmatism can be a sign of insecurity. I feel defensiveness rising up in me when a belief I cherish is called into question. So I am learning to examine my insecurities when that happens. Not that I shouldn’t have dearly held beliefs; which leads me to my next perspective.
Perspective 3: The existence of Truth. There are some truth claims in Christianity which are important, and without which we cease to be Christians and simply become a club without any commonly held beliefs or practices. Those beliefs are fairly succinctly spelled out in the Apostle’s Creed, which, by the way, says nothing about abortion, gay marriage, guns, Donald Trump or other issues that have become hills to die on by some. One could even argue that Jesus boiled down the practice of the faith to two practices: #1 Love God. #2 Love neighbor. But, please do allow us to hold a few things as capital T Truths which are worthy of defending. Don’t hesitate to call us out if we’re being jerks about those few things, and I appeal to my Christian brothers and sisters to not to turn things for which God intended for there to be freedom into unbending, my-way-or-the-highway, capital T Truths. We need to hold deep convictions but could do better at being kind and considerate when they are opposed.
Perspective 4: Our toxic environment. Haven’t you noticed that everyone has become meaner lately? We’re all more prickly and more easily offended and quick to bite back than we were not so long ago. You may be experiencing some Christians as mean or judgy because it’s in the atmosphere. I honestly don’t know how to turn down the rhetoric. It’s out of control. But perhaps recognizing that everybody is just a bit too tightly wound will give you the ability to extend some grace to Christians (or anyone for that matter) who seems to react too strongly to your honest questions or your direct challenges to ideas, beliefs and issues.
A friend of mine recently told me that when he was eight his Sunday school teacher attacked him for saying that Jesus was the imaginary friend who played with him and talked to him. Even at that young age he decided to take a few steps back from his pursuit of Jesus when that Sunday school teacher told him it was wrong and dangerous to think that. And, of course, stuff like that and worse happens all the time. These are the experiences that prompt people to ask (or think) “Why are Christians so judgmental.”
We might all do better, Christian and non-Christian alike, to love the hater, be merciful to the judgmental, and extend friendship to the unfriendly. Sounds a bit like something Jesus would do.