critique vs. criticism

‘Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, you’ll be a mile away, and you’ll have his shoes.’ [gotta love me some Jack Handey]

this is very similar to love Jesus and grow a brain because i strongly feel this is something the church needs to be majoring a lot more on and what good God-loving Christ-following leaders need to be teaching their people to be doing more of

if i have to generalise a lot i would say that the south african church as a whole needs to break out of it’s ‘accept everything, change nothing’ mode of operation – where a lot of tradition is continued solely for the reason of tradition’s sake [but we’ve always done it this way therefore it must be right and it must be God] and where not a lot of testing, challenging, wrestling is done.

the american church on the other hand, in a completely different generalisation, has gone crazily to the other extreme, of ‘accept nothing, change everything’ where everything is about ‘the new thing God is going to do,’ the latest ‘flavour of the month’ [be it book, speaker, emerging church trend] and christianity seems largely about what feels God or seems right to me or especially what culture deems right and acceptable.

when i wrote ‘critique’ and ‘criticism’ in my drafts file the other day to remind myself to write this, i think i had in mind that critique was the good guy and criticism the bad guy… but now i’m seeing it a little more like this – both are good and necessary, in good measures.

i don’t know if this is absolutely true but if i was to differentiate between the two i would say i largely see criticism as something you do to something or someone else whereas critique [altho it might be a specific subset called self-critique] is something you do to yourself or your thing.

with Jesus’ ‘log in eye’ story in Matthew 7, He highlights the necessity of starting at home – your life, your faith, your current church congregation or gathering… and critique here is of vital importance. as is reading and knowing [or starting to know] the bible as it is our measuring rod and one of the major problems in the church today is that people generally don’t know their bibles and so whatever the preacher guy says has to be right because we have nothing to critique it against… we sing songs in “worship time” with words we would never say as definitive statements although is “worship singing” not simply prayers that have been put to music? and if so, should be not be evaluating what we sing and making sure it is truth [either in what is reality or at the very least in what we are striving towards]. and we hold to ideas we have of what is in the Bible simply because someone said that at one time or it feels like something that should be in the bible and we don’t necessarily know how to back it up if someone genuinely asks us.

self critique is vital. firstly, simply to understand and know what you believe for yourself. but then if you are ever going to share your faith, or aspects of it, with others [as is sometime meant to be the plan] it is responsible to be able to answer the whys of your beliefs and actions. you don’t have to understand God completely [He is SO huge that it doesn’t make sense for that to be possible] or have all the answers [there is a certain mystery to the gospel] but be responsible with what you can. and if it is the most important thing in your life [as it should be] then spending some time reading the bible, discussing with people, listening to messages and so on becomes a natural expected thing.

but criticism is also important. but the Truth MUST always be spoken in love:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. [ephesians 4.11-16]

especially in the age of ‘social networking’ or ‘corporate gossip spew’ where people ‘speak boldly’ on things they would never dare say to your face and where everyone has an opinion and theology on everything, where every word vomited on to a screen can be seen by so many other people, it is important for people to speak up for Truth and to bring critique and criticism [both publically and privately] to bear.

and a bunch more stuff, but i do want this to have the appearance of a blog, and hopefully you get my point… and remember the other person’s shoes…