Discernment

Last week, I had the highest number of visitors and page views as I’ve ever had in a single week by a good measure. Though I know that my past week’s post caught a certain amount of attention, I have had little in the way of specified feedback.

As I considered my audience (at least the potential audience who may have stumbled upon this blog), I ruminated on the fact that there are Liberty students, Liberty alumni, Liberty parents; there are university professors, seminary professors, pastors. There are numerous people who have more experience preaching on, teaching, and/or discussing some of these topics in their pinky fingers than I will have even twenty years from now.

So, I’ve done a lot of thinking about last week’s posts. Looking back, I find it interesting how many people (myself included) were drawn into this controversy. I know that interpreting Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s comments on Donald Trump as a conflation of Christianity and politics certainly got a rise out of me. I was fired up and immediately rushed to judgment, and given the number of people who wound up at least clicking the link to this site, I believe many people formed an opinion on the matter rather quickly.

Reflecting on the issue, I realize that there was probably a lot more self-righteousness in both of my previous posts than I would care to admit. Yet, even after a few days to process everything, I still think that the initial criticism of the situation is a justified one. The spirit in which I levied that criticism, however, needed to be different.

That I, in my excitement, wrote the post the way that I did and that it gained a lot of attention likely highlights the least desirable parts of our nature. We like to put others down in an attempt to raise ourselves up. Such efforts to prove our worth only reveal how shallow we really are.

At the same time, though, we as Christians need to be able to criticize one another. But the purpose behind our honest criticism needs to focus on making all of us better, not trumpeting ourselves or our cherished clique as better than another.

With that in mind, I have prepared a few posts on the nature of Christian involvement in politics that will go live throughout this week. During election years, our collective ears tend to perk up, and we pay closer attention to politics than usual. Unfortunately, this typically leads to a lot of division and judgment, especially between various limbs of the Christian body.

Last week, I more or less added to that noise. I hope that this week there can be redemption and a change in tenor.

Though it will be interesting to see if the (attempted) tone of wisdom and discernment will garner the same number of page views.