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[Separation] Interesting Reversal
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John Henry
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Mar 18, 2005 06:28 PST
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INTERESTING REVERSAL
Deprecation of the critical spirit often takes a curious turn:
opposition is expressed against the critic rather than the one who provoked
the criticism. The one who violates the moral law, or departs from sound
principles, will often get more support than the one who objects. Those
guilty of scandal will be defended against the critic of the scandal. It
seems at times to be worse to expose a scandal than to commit it.
Surely there is a strange reversal of values in our day. To
expose scandal, to protest against wrong, is to expose oneself to the
charge of “mud-slinging”; so, much sin remains unexposed and unrebuked.
Many therefore are permitted to pursue their destructive course unexposed;
so that many are deceived and led astray. Edmund Burke once said that “evil
can triumph if good men will keep still.” By a strange confusion of values
good men today who refuse to keep silent are treated with more intolerance
than the perpetrators of the evil deed.
The function of criticism must not be hindered, or corruption
will go on unexposed and unchecked. The right to criticize moral wrong is a
moral right. The duty to criticize or expose wrong is a God-given duty.
When this right is criticized by a morally tolerant society or the
ethically shiftless, it is an evidence of the moral flabbiness of those who
object to moral criticism and not a mark of superior piety as some suppose.
The widespread deprecation of the critical spirit is a mark of the
excessive moral tolerance of our times. The fact that the right of
criticism is abused is no reason for abolishing it.
-- Chester E. Tulga (The Doctrine of Right and Wrong in These Times, c. 1954)
-- From Focus on Missions
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<div align="center"><b>INTERESTING REVERSAL<br><br>
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<b>Deprecation of the critical spirit often takes a curious turn:
opposition is expressed against the critic rather than the one who
provoked the criticism. The one who violates the moral law, or departs
from sound principles, will often get more support than the one who
objects. Those guilty of scandal will be defended against the critic of
the scandal. It seems at times to be worse to expose a scandal than to
commit it.<br><br>
Surely
there is a strange reversal of values in our day. To expose scandal, to
protest against wrong, is to expose oneself to the charge of
“mud-slinging”; so, much sin remains unexposed and unrebuked. Many
therefore are permitted to pursue their destructive course unexposed; so
that many are deceived and led astray. Edmund Burke once said that “evil
can triumph if good men will keep still.” By a strange confusion of
values good men today who refuse to keep silent are treated with more
intolerance than the perpetrators of the evil deed.<br><br>
The
function of criticism must not be hindered, or corruption will go on
unexposed and unchecked. The right to criticize moral wrong is a moral
right. The duty to criticize or expose wrong is a God-given duty. When
this right is criticized by a morally tolerant society or the ethically
shiftless, it is an evidence of the moral flabbiness of those who object
to moral criticism and not a mark of superior piety as some suppose. The
widespread deprecation of the critical spirit is a mark of the excessive
moral tolerance of our times. The fact that the right of criticism is
abused is no reason for abolishing it.<br><br>
<br>
-- Chester E. Tulga (The Doctrine of Right and Wrong in These Times, c.
1954)<br><br>
-- From Focus on Missions<br>
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