Warning… With Tears
Is political correctness nothing more than kidness, as you've no doubt heard? Jesus did warn that we are to “judge not, that ye be not judged,” (Matthew 7:1). But the way this statement is often quoted leverages it out of its context. Yet it has been a very effective tactic against the virtue of discernment. As a result, are Christians now in danger of equating toleration of opposing viewpoints with kindness toward the individuals expressing those viewpoints?
If we carefully regard God’s persistent intervention in the lives of the Israelites, His willingness to allow life for everyone under the sun to be a “vanity” and “groaning” until the final redemption comes we may be moved to take a different view. Is it not God’s kindness which leads us to repentance? (Romans 2:4) Couldn’t Jesus’ stark warnings about judgment be consistent with His kindness? A striking passage is repeated in Ezekiel (3:19 and 33:9):
“…if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.” In context, God is saying that it’s Ezekiel’s job to hear from God and repeat God’s warnings about judgment to the people. In Ezekiel 33, God clarifies His point by making an analogy of a city under attack: if someone is assigned to guard the city and blows the trumpet before the attack comes, those who are unprepared have only themselves to blame. But the watchman who flees without sounding the trumpet is himself to blame if they are unprepared.
Why is God so careful to ensure people are warned? Because He is a just judge, as Ezekiel 18 painstakingly describes, one who has “…no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (v. 32)
It may be an undertaking for which we hardly expect gratitude from those we warn, but if the failure to confront harmful ideologies isn’t irresponsibility on our part, what is?
Ezekiel’s word from God holds him directly responsible, like a security guard. What would have been the effect of an irresponsible or cowardly watchman, on both the attackers and the citizens?
God discloses the attitude of the invader in Ezekiel 38: “I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates.” (Ezekiel 38:11–12)
A modern comparison to such a tense picture would be the mass shootings we’ve experienced in America in the past few years. They’ve taken place at concerts, at festivals, at shopping centers and schools. These are places where law-abiding citizens can’t be armed. That’s why attackers choose them: it’s the modern equivalent of living securely without bars or gates.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglass school shooter in Parkland Florida was emboldened by just such a situation. An unarmed baseball coach riding a golf cart sighted shooter Nikolas Cruz entering a gate he’d recently unlocked with a rifle bag. Cruz was an unstable individual that this coach and his colleagues had previously identified as the most likely candidate to shoot up the school. The coach was a member of the security team, and it had been his job to call the “Code Red” to lock up the school, but after seeing Cruz, he only noted his presence to another campus monitor. The second man saw the gunman, but security footage shows him turning the other way from him. A student saw Cruz loading his gun and was warned by Cruz to get out. He in turn warned a third security monitor, a football coach, who likewise failed to call a Code Red on his radio.
As Cruz began his deadly rampage, killing three students, the football coach hid in a closet and still did not call in the Code Red. Meanwhile, campus security officer Scot Peterson arrived, found the football coach, and together they drove a golf cart toward where the gunman went, but Peterson, the only armed person on location, failed to enter the building. He ended up hiding between two other buildings and using his radio to ask that the road be blocked off to incoming traffic. For this reason, when the Broward County Sheriff arrived, he remained at the football field, 1,000 feet away, keeping cars from coming to the buildings.
After five and a half minutes, by which time 12 have been killed and 13 are wounded, Code Red was finally called for the campus. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel) It would later be revealed that law enforcement had received between 23 and 45 calls about Cruz or his family. It seems the appointed watchmen had multiple reasons to sound the alarm but were not prepared to do so.
When the aggressor identifies inadequate warning response, he’s emboldened for the confrontation. In an ideological sense, we have seen this effect in the past several decades, as secularizing forces in America have sensed an inadequate reaction on the part of believers to their attempts to decentralize the influence of faith from public life.
Could we be killing them with our form of kindness?
In the “watchman” analogy, we must not forget that the “people who dwell securely” are also behind the drift from biblically-informed morality. They’re the danger as well as the victims we’re trying to warn. We must not see them as “the enemy” because if we do, that’s how they’ll inevitably see us. As Scripture says, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood,” so “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh.” (Eph. 6:12, 2 Cor. 10:4) It’s for this reason we have to understand that it’s both anti-Christian attitudes and ineffectual response to those attitudes which contribute to a false sense of security among people on their way to God’s condemnation.
Singer Steve Green once learned about a danger well-known to professionals in a related field. He used to tour with Bill and Gloria Gaither, and while preparing for the concerts, he would observe the riggers hanging speakers and spotlights, hundreds of feet in the air. They weren’t afraid of walking across a narrow rafter hundreds of feet above a concrete floor, but they didn’t enjoy doing the same thing above false ceilings: acoustical tile between them and the floor. Why? The close barrier, even though it wouldn’t break their fall at all, tended to lull them into carelessness.
Ezekiel’s contemporary Jeremiah found that his people were unwilling to hear his message of warning because of their false sense of security: the Lord’s Temple was there, and surely, He wouldn’t allow anything to happen to His own Temple. (Jeremiah 7:4-15) Through Jeremiah, God reminded them of what had happened to His Tabernacle at Shiloh (vv. 12-15) but they were unwilling to listen, as God had predicted. (v. 27)
Many of the most troubling objections to the Christian faith exploit our inability to clearly define the terms upon which people are to be judged and faithfully present the logical necessity of a truly benevolent, all-powerful and all-knowing God to judge the world. In order to faithfully preach the gospel message, it is necessary for Christians to engage in legitimate dialog with our peers, both gently answering their objections with a ready defense and assertively destroying arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5; cf., 2 Timothy 4:1-5)
