How Judgmentalism is Killing Your Church And 3 Ways to Stop It

Clearly Christians have a an image problem: we’re viewed by many non-Christians as far too judgmental.

Okay…it’s not so much an image problem as it much as it is a real problem.

We are judgmental. And outsiders (and a whole generation raised in the church) can’t stand it.

Who can blame them? Are you best friends with people who judge you?

When we judge, we tell people that God loves them but simultaneously communicate that we don’t like them.

What a strange place to land. I love you (at least conceptually), but I just don’t like you.

And then we wonder why they’re not lining up to spend more time with us at our church.

Recently I taught a message at our church responding to the question “Why on Earth are Christian So Judgmental?” (you can watch it here).

The message got a disproportionately large response and I realized so many people have been hurt by judgment.  Person after person thanked me for dealing with the subject.

Not only had I hit a nerve, but I think judgmentalism is a key reason so many churches aren’t growing.  

Why Christian Judgment is a Terrible Idea

Being judgmental isn’t just a bad marketing strategy, it’s terrible theology.

We are told again and again that judgment belongs to God, and Jesus made his views on human judgment very public. His words haunt me.

And when we are permitted to judge, functionally we do the opposite of what scripture tells us to do.

Paul says Christian are supposed to judge fellow Christians, but not outsiders.

Functionally, what do most Christian today do? Judge outsiders for not living up to Christian standards, while at the same time letting fellow Christians get away with sin.

Too many Christians complain about lax sexual standards in our culture but then make their way to a dessert night at church and pig out.

If we’re going to follow Paul’s teaching more closely, we should suspend comment on the morals of non-Christians (aren’t they supposed to act like non-Christians anyway?) and have a conversation with fellow Christians about gluttony (after all, it’s listed in the same list of sins as sexual sin).

Could you imagine what would happen if Christians loved people outside the church and held those inside the church accountable to an authentically Christian way of life?

3 Ways to Deal with Judgmentalism

So how do you attack the problem of Christian judgmentalism? It’s a big subject for sure, but here are 3 things you can change starting today that will help you tackle judgmentalism.

 1. Eliminate the Christian double standard.

The Christian double standard sounds like this: your sin is worse than my sin.

Example: a Christian leader gets upset when a couple moves into together before marriage, but justifies his gossip about it as ‘prayer’ or ‘concern’.

Somehow there’s a filter inside most of us that say “my gossip is not as a big a deal to God as her sexual sin/addiction/attitude is”.  And that’s just not true.

The best thing you can do about that personally is to see it for what it is and confess it.

And when you see it as a leader in your church, call it out. Talk about it. Name it. Have a one on one conversation with the person who’s causing the problem.

I know…I know…you’re saying “but isn’t that judging?” Read on….

2. Practice discernment, not judgment.

When it comes to dealing with with problems inside the church, we are called to ‘judge”. But judgment is a loaded term in our culture. The original Greek term is a little less loaded. It means to decide.

I’ve made a distinction that helps me work through what to do when faced with issues.

When I try to ‘judge’ (in the way we think of judgment in the Western World), it’s almost never helpful. But when I try to discern, it can be very helpful if done well.

Here’s the rule of thumb I use to check my motives:

Judgment (at least the way most of us practice it) is almost always distorted and destructive. It’s distorted because we can’t see what God sees, and judgment belongs to him. It’s destructive because it almost never helps the person who’s the subject of our judgment.

Discernment, by contrast, is helpful and restorative. There are always issues to deal with, but when I try to exercise discernment I am always so much better. Discernment, exercised well, helps people and can remedy the situation.

The church, paradoxically, is the place where I have felt most judged and I have been most helped. No one has been more hurtful than some Christians and honestly, no one has been more helpful than many Christians I know. My life is so much better because I have had a circle of wise and loving Christians around me now for decades.

Could you imagine what would happen if we eliminated the harm and instead simply offered help?

3. Start with Ministry, not Theology

So how do you engage outsiders then?

Billy Phenix offers an important thought. You start with ministry,

If you look at how Jesus approached outsiders, he always started with ministry and ended with theology. He loved hanging out with people who were nothing like him. And as Andy Stanley says, Jesus liked people who were nothing like him. It’s why he became friends with hookers, tax collectors and everyone else the ‘righteous’ people of his day despised.

Jesus would start with ministry and then eventually get to theology.

You know who does the opposite? People who judge. If you’re a judger, you start with theology. You say things like “I can’t hang around people like that. Don’t they know what they’re doing is wrong.”

When you start with theology you become intolerant.

And that’s what’s killing your ministry. Intolerance destroys influence.

Your judgment betrays God’s acceptance.

Of course you realize in Jesus’ day who started with theology, right? The Pharisees and religious leaders.

Imagine what would happen if church leaders today started with ministry. Imagine what would happen if you communicated God’s acceptance of sinners? You would have influence. And you would use that influence to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. And yes, ultimately, they would change.

After all, human sin was dealt with at the cross. And you weren’t saved by your righteousness either. Just because your sin might be different than their sin doesn’t mean your sin isn’t sin. Change will come over time. Transformation is a sanctification issue far more than it is a salvation issue.

When you start with ministry, you gain so much ground with people that eventually they are even anxious to hear a ‘go and sin no more’ moment. When you start with ‘go and sin no more’, you destroy your influence before you even know someone’s name.

This is a complex subject of course, but I hope this helps you navigate the tension you and I feel around the issue of judgment, both personally and in the churches we lead.