Judge not?

Adoro brought up an interesting topic in her comments on the homily I preached today that I’m sure she won’t mind us discussing in a separate post. She said:

The problem is that so many are attached to their own ideologies and haven't thought their way out of them, no matter how much good information is provided to them.

You cited one of the objections: "Church and State."

And don't forget "We can't judge"And "What would Jesus do?"

That last was trotted out just after the one on judging. (Just happened today.)

The person in question suggested that the only important thing is that "Jesus is loving" and "What would Jesus do"?

It completely ignores reality in favor of feel-good fuzzies, never mind the horror of what abortion really is.

She also has a post on this topic – which is well worth a read - in which she discusses it thoroughly and well.

Responding to the statements often pronounced by would-be theologians, “What would Jesus do?” and “We can’t judge,” Adoro says, “Because, of course, we all know that Jesus was a warm fuzzy teddy bear that just made everyone feel good about themselves.” She hit the nail right on the head!

This is a prevalent misconception about Jesus and it doesn’t appear that it will be going away anytime soon. From where did this pathetic – and sadly all too common – view of the Divine Master come?

I can’t help but think it stems from a lack of knowledge of the Scriptures, both from the actual reading of the Scriptures and from preachers preaching the fullness of the Scriptures, which is also connected to the loss of the sense of sin, which ties in here, too. Goofy pictures of Jesus with baseball bats (or soccer balls) surely don’t help, either.

When confronted with the ridiculous comment, “What would Jesus do?,” (as if that solved everything) we should actually show them what Jesus would do.

We should remind them of the many times that Jesus said, “Woe to you…” (cf. Luke 6:24-26). Nice guys don’t say such things. And what of his conversation with the Canaanite woman (cf. Mark 7:27)? Is he nice with her? Hardly. What of his rebuke to Peter (cf. Matthew 16:23)? Again, far from nice.

We seem to have forgotten that there is a great difference between a man who is nice and a man who is kind, or even a man who is compassionate. A man who is nice is nothing more than a pushover.

Is Jesus a nice guy? No. Is he kind and compassionate? Yes.

Many also seem to have forgotten that we are not, in fact, Jesus and so the question “What would Jesus do?” is somewhat irrelevant and trite. The question should rather be, “What would Jesus have me do?” But again, this can only be discerned from a true knowledge of the Scriptures, all of them, not just the ones I like.

We always remember – and remind others of – the words of Saint Jerome: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”