Bill Muehlenberg’s Culturewatch blog is read around the world. It’s a conservative blog that discusses “critically and soberly where our culture is heading”.

Consider a remark I received from a friendly, believing, critic. He said that the activities I am involved in were not what believers are supposed to be involved in. He said, “I am concerned that Christians are distracted in their allegiance to Jesus when they believe they must ‘stand up against’ the sin of not-yet Christians while the church still reeks of the stench of its own sinfulness. Our only mandate is to love as Jesus loves. He never stood against the prostitutes or tax collectors etc., publicly or privately, only the self-righteous Jewish leaders (and there he had the right as he was also a rabbi).”

Now let me say that there are at least one and a half things said here that I agree with. The first concerns the church: it certainly is in a mess. No quarrels there. It does reek at times, and there are major problems in the church. We have much to be ashamed of.

But what is this critic suggesting? That it’s only when the church gets its act together that it might be allowed to speak to the rest of the world? If so, I humbly argue that it never will.

The second idea is that we are only called to love as Jesus loves. What exactly does this critic mean by loving as Jesus loved? I am not sure. From the rest of this critic’s email, it means something about being compassionate and non-judgmental.

Was Jesus non-judgmental when he cast out the money-changers? Was he being non-judgmental when he challenged the leaders of the day—both religious and non-religious?

And is it true that Jesus never challenged any lifestyle or behaviour of non-believers? It seems he did on many occasions. He could say to the woman caught in adultery, “go and sin no more”. He made it clear that the condition for forgiveness was repentance.

My critic thinks that when believers stand against the immorality of the day they are being judgmental and un-Christlike. We must not do this, or we will be out of the will of God, my critic in fact implies.

Is a believer out of the will of God and un-Christlike when he seeks to oppose the slave trade as Wilberforce did?
Is a believer out of the will of God and un-Christlike when he seeks to oppose a brothel being opened next to the local kindergarten?

Is a believer out of the will of God and un-Christlike when he seeks to oppose drug dealers peddling their wares in the local schoolyard? Is a believer out of the will of God and un-Christlike when he seeks to oppose laws which would mandate that unbelievers teach in the Sunday school?

Now is this all the Christian is called to do? Of course not. But it is a part of it. It is part of obeying Jesus when he said we should be salt and light.

But some believers just do not approve of such involvement. Indeed, Wilberforce was criticised almost as strongly by fellow believers as unbelievers. They felt that what he was doing had nothing to do with the gospel. Lord Melbourne for example told Wilberforce, “Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life”.

Having said all that, has the church at times come across as too harsh and too unloving and too judgmental? Yes, at times it has. But some of these complaints are justified, some are not. If a believer pleads for the life of the innocent, whether the slave, or the unborn, some will always find that judgmental. That is the nature of the case. Indeed, if a believer proclaims the unique salvation that comes only in Christ, the non-believer will find that to be intolerant and judgmental.

In one sense, the Christian will never be free of charges of being judgmental or divisive. Jesus was accused of being divisive and narrow. His whole ministry was one of division and separation, wherein people either were attracted to him or repulsed by him. That must be the case with believers as well, as we seek to proclaim truth, live lives of integrity, and act as salt and light in a corrupt and broken world.