Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
(James 4:11-12 ESV)
I was going to post the verses from James 3, talking about the tongue and the sometimes destructive power of our words, but the above jumped out at me and seemed to apply even more.
One of the things that's been on my mind lately, in part because of all the discussion among other Christian bloggers, is where we draw the line between biblical discernment and unbiblical judgement and gossip. There are a lot of people out there teaching and doing questionable things, but I think the internet has made it easy to spread criticism over even small things by taking words and actions out of context. There is also a great danger in judging others based on gossip, what we may have heard about a person or their doctrine, without ever having mt them or seen and heard what they do and teach firsthand.
I've been very tempted to fall into this lately, because certain well-known pastors do make themselves easy target. I'm part of a church plant now where the pastor and most of the "core" members think highly of some of these same pastors that others I respect and have learned from love to criticize. This made me uncomfortable for a while, because I wondered if I was doing the right thing in aligning myself with people who supported others who've already drawn such scrutiny. Digging deeper, I did see some valid criticisms, but also a spirit of gossip and judgmentalism that made it hard to separate the really questionable statements from the personal animosity.
One thing that made me reevaluate my own view of the controversies was finding one of the best messages on prayer i have ever hear, slipped in between YouTube clips that were meant to reflect negatively on a certain pastor. I do agree that the church needs to be on the lookout for those teaching false doctrine, but I think we are too quick now to criticize others who are orthodox in belief, just because we disagree with their methods or presentation. For now, I'm going to make an effort to look at the message, rather than the messenger, when these controversies come up. I do not want to miss or throw out good, solid teaching, just because I listened to criticisms based on other things.
