Dear Ray,
I can see something wrong and still be wrong in the life from which I speak about it.
That is an uncomfortable admission for someone who writes as sharply as I sometimes do.
But I cannot place my criticism beyond the cross simply because I believe the criticism is justified.
Religion can displace Christ. Gifted people can dominate the body. Institutions can consume the life they claim to serve.
Seeing those things does not make me free from pride.
I can become attached to being the person who exposes them. I can begin to need the failure of others because their failure confirms my understanding.
Then another substitution has occurred.
My insight has become my importance.
First Corinthians 8:1 contrasts knowledge that puffs up with love that builds up. Paul does not allow the possession of understanding to establish the character of the person who possesses it.
The effect upon others matters.
Am I making room for Christ, or collecting evidence for my own superiority?
Do I grieve over what has been lost, or enjoy having another example to add to my argument?
Can I recognize genuine love in someone whose religious position I reject?
These questions must reach me before I send them toward anyone else.
The Lord’s warning about the beam in our own eye exposes the blindness with which we can undertake to correct another person (Matthew 7:3–5).
I may be right about the speck and unable to see the person.
That is not a small failure.
I do not want to soften what must be said merely to appear agreeable. Christ confronted what opposed His Father. There are things that need a plain refusal.
But sharpness cannot become an exemption from His life.
If I am unable to be corrected, I have begun resembling the authority I criticize. If I need people to accept my account before I can receive them, I am constructing another boundary around belonging.
The religious self can survive by becoming anti-religious.
It can preach freedom while gathering people around its judgment.
Ray, I want the cross to reach that possibility in me.
I want to be willing to lose the admiration of those who agree with me. I want to release a sentence when its force comes more from my injury than from light.
I want to acknowledge an error without feeling that the whole burden of my writing has collapsed.
Christ does not need me to be infallible.
He does not need my resentment to defend His supremacy.
Zoe is already His gift within us. My task is not to generate a holier criticism through self-control, but to yield the self that demands expression so His life may supply my words.
Let the criticism pass through the same judgment it asks others to receive.
Let the critic lose his throne.
I would rather have Christ gain ground in me than have another argument prove that I was right.
Your brother,
Brent
