Articles
Who is Judging Whom?
In 1980, a professor at Dartmouth conducted a sociological experiment. He had a group of volunteers go into a job interview with the intent of having them report back how they were treated by the interviewer. Half of these volunteers were given artificial scars and disfigurements before the interview and the other half were not. The volunteers were allowed to look in a mirror and get a good look at the scars they had been given. Then, just before the interviews, they were given a “touch up” to make certain the scars were perfect and impossible to detect as forgeries. Would the interviewers treat them differently based on their appearance?
The volunteers who had been disfigured reported widespread discrimination including everything from inappropriate comments and being uncomfortably stared at. But they had been tricked. Unknown to the volunteers, the scars had not been touched up, they’d been completely removed before the interviews! Every volunteer went in looking normal, but half of them did not think so. As a result, they perceived their interviews differently. It would have been impossible for the interviewers to discriminate because there was nothing to discriminate.
Jesus said, “seek and you will find” (Mt. 6:7). Apparently that truth has an even broader application. If you are looking for people to misbehave, you will find it. If you are looking for people to be judging you, you will find that too.
We know that we are commanded not to judge one another (Mt. 7:1). Naturally, then, we do not like to be judged. You can understand when people get upset by other’s judgments. But be careful! In the experiment, who were the ones actually judging the others? It wasn’t the innocent interviewers, but the mistaken volunteers who assumed they were being judged. They were the ones making the false accusations, judging the actions and motives of the people around them. They thought themselves to be the victims, when they were actually the ones in error.
This same scenario plays itself out in the church all of the time. There was one member who left the church in a huff because he was convinced that visiting preachers were specifically being asked to call out his behavior. They were not being told any such thing. But, this member would never believe it. He was convinced the church was full of cowards having someone else do their dirty work for them. Looking back, I think the only thing he proved was being self-conscious of his own decisions.
When people have an expectation that Christians are judgmental, guess what they find? Every sentence is unfairly scrutinized, every glance demonized, and before you know it, the people go away convinced that they were, in fact, being judged.
Discrimination is real. Being judged is real. However, don’t be too quick to assume it is happening to you. Maybe those whispers are about you, or maybe they have nothing to do with you at all. It could be that you are the one who is judging them and not the other way around.
