Dear Reader,

I might know you, and I might not, but I already know something about you and I that makes us similar: neither of us is without sin. We have both committed crimes of cosmic significance against a perfect standard carried out by a Perfect Judge. We are incapable of doing any less, because we are broken by our very nature. It isn’t that if we try hard enough that we’ll somehow overcome this natural problem. Of course, some of our problems may be solved with medicine or some other invention, but our nature is not something so easily swayed. It would take a miracle to change it. Thankfully, we have a miracle.

No one can make you accept this miracle, just as no one can make you accept that you are not without sin. That is something you’ll have to come to terms with on your own. It should be obvious to you, though, that something isn’t right about yourself and the world around you; that peace has never lasted forever, that falsehood is often claimed as truth, that evil is pervasive, etc.

Dear Reader, the worst thing I could do (or any Christian for that matter) would be to ignore all of this. The worst thing I could do, the most unloving thing, would be to tell you that you’re okay and I’m not in a position to tell you whether you have sinned or not. The simple fact is that I know we have both sinned, and not telling you is simply lying to you. My personality often comes off strongly, but that doesn’t mean I am happy about having to tell you the truth of the matter. I’d rather have that cup pass me by. I’d rather someone else take my place, but I do not want to lie to you when that place is mine.

If you are not a Christian, I would implore you to become one. If you are already a Christian, I would implore you to stay true to the faith, conforming your feelings to it. We are often told to follow our hearts or that how we feel about something defines the reality of it, but nothing could be farther from the truth. There is nothing inherently good or trustworthy about our feelings. As CS Lewis put it:

“Don’t bother too much about your feelings. When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them; when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask to have them altered. In neither case are they you, but only a thing that happens to you. What matters is your intentions and your behaviour.”

It would be uncaring, unloving for me (or you) to withhold the obvious judgment of sin from another and simply accept it all. If I truly care for anyone else, it certainly means I care more for them than I do for their feelings. You are more than your feelings, and your feelings are your weakest part; they are the most easily swayed, and they are the least trustworthy.

Dear Reader, whether you know me or not, you can expect this to be my attitude as often as I can make it, for it is the ideal attitude that I strive for: To love you enough to love the whole you, not just your feelings. That means we might argue and it means you might come to have a highly negative opinion of me. It means I will likely hurt your feelings and that people who value peace more than Truth might get mad at me and call me names for doing so. But it won’t change the things that love demands, and it won’t change whether or not I carry those demands out.

This is the Christian position on the matter. It is harder than hatred, which cannot love, and apathy also, which ignores sin sinfully by disguising itself as love. The Christian position is the one in which I cannot ignore sin but also can’t stop loving the person committing it. It means I can’t, in good conscience, accept your sin as a part of who you are and simply ignore it, but can’t ignore you either just because it is easier. It means your character matters to me, but so to your mind, body, and spirit, and I refuse to separate them but to love you and reject your sin. It is the hardest of all positions to take, but it is the only correct one. I assure you I will fail to live up to this ideal, but it is what I strive for. I hope to God you strive for the same with me and don’t let me off easily when I pursue what is wrong because it is easier for you or because you believe it will cause me emotional trauma. My soul is more important than my feelings, and so is yours.

Dear Reader, keep this in mind, should our paths ever cross.

The world is changing faster than it really wants to or really should. I do not say that because I fear the sorts of changes that are happening. Certainly, the changes will not benefit mankind, and surely, I would stop them if I could. I do not fear them, because history has a sort of magic to it by which it progresses towards a climax. I do not fear the high point of history, because it will be the greatest and most terrible point in all Creation for everyone, and it is as inevitable as each step towards it. I also know how it turns out in the end.

What I mean when I declare that the world is changing too quickly is that it no longer has time to adjust itself to its own momentum. It moves forward, tries to catch its breath, and is pushed forward again. In this 21st century after the death of antiquity, it would be more accurate to say that the world is simply running at this point, having given up even the hope of stopping to rest. This gives any witness a great benefit however: the motions are now predictable.

Take for example the great 19th century movement away from classical knowledge towards fashionable knowledge as an example. In this century was coined the phrase “dark ages” to describe a period of history much brighter in artistry, music, and thinking than our own. In the 19th century, no longer were we permitted to ask why someone would do something, but instead to stoop in silence as they defended whatever fashion they had adopted with the phrase “why not?” This phrase, perhaps the worst and least powerful argument that could exist in defense of anything, is now seen as the mark of a dreamer or optimist who only has the best of intentions. The century also saw the rise of celebrity-as-expert, which we still experience today with people who were not celebrated at all for whatever topics we consider them to be experts in.

The 20th century which followed was predictable then as it saw more tarnishing of the past. The United States was founded by bigots, racists, sexists, [n]ists, where n goes on to infinity. The old Christian church was the most evil organization to ever exist, and never you mind yourself trying to decide if that statement is true or not (we’ve done it for you, of course). The fashions moved on towards emotion taking the place of reason as the method of argument, which can be seen visibly in advertising and any number of pulpits on Sunday morning. Feminism was on the rise as well, predictably from the suffrage movement and the peace after the world wars.

And so we arrive to our own 21st century. The fashionable topics of the day change weekly, from Kony2012, to gun control, to homosexual marriage. Gone is the notion that there is some ideal to which we might reach; instead, it is to each person’s own ideal that they must strive for. Christianity has (unfortunately) followed along, about 20 years behind. To the calls for relativity in all human affairs, the fashionable church has responded “let no man judge”, while ignoring the looming mountain of Christian history and ethics behind him. To the movement for gay marriage the church responded “let him who is without sin cast the first stone”, ignoring all of world history until the past decade on the topic. The fashionable church must be on the cutting edge, after all, regardless of what is cut by it.

As an unfashionable Christian, I take the same stance that would have been taken by any number of unfashionable Christians all the way to the first few who were so unfashionable that they were martyred: I will love my neighbors and my enemies (often the same people), and will judge by the same standard I expect to be judged. That of course is to say that I will judge, remaining, to my word, unfashionable. This puts friends, family, neighbors, enemies, coworkers, and everyone else in a curious position when talking to me, however, since judgment isn’t always pleasant. But just there is the fallacy hiding in the midst of the entire debate on judgment happening today. If no one is capable of judging whatsoever, then surely no one is capable of judging in a positive sense. If someone were to say “My wife, you are beautiful to me”, they are making a judgment. If the wife were about to shave her head down to a Mohawk because it had become fashionable to do so for women and her husband were to say “You ought not to follow the trends of the day, as you are beautiful with your hair”, he again makes a judgment.

Imagine a man who had confessed to murder. Would it be prudent to judge him had he chosen to hide his confession in your keeping? Would you judge him as honest? As a liar? No matter what your stance, the moment you make a stance, you have judged. Only two questions remain, and they are so important that they are the only ones in regards to judgment that are asked of us:

• By what standard are we to judge?
• Have we judged righteously?

We had best have excellent answers for both questions, because by the standard we judge others, we ourselves will be judged. God, being perfect while holding a perfect Standard, judges most of us harshly while escaping all judgment Himself, but this is another topic. As an unfashionable Christian, my answers are:

• By Truth: revealed, discovered, and reasoned.
• It is my aim, though God forgive me when I fail.

If you are a friend or acquaintance of mine, know that this is the standard I judge by. Know that I fail, as I am frail. Know that I oppose intolerance done under the guise of tolerance as both evil and common hypocrisy. Know that I will not change my beliefs because they offend, but would be happy to reason with you as to why yours might be better if you are willing to discuss why mine might be better as well. Know that I believe love means more than ignoring what you do that I disagree with. Know that love really does mean more than ignoring what someone disagrees with about someone else. Know that love is a word that today is so brutally abused that we ought to weigh our words carefully before putting it in danger again.