Weasel Words: A Quote from Billy Graham

Okay, I don't imagine this post will make me very popular. Not among my evangelical friends anyway. Describing Billy Graham's words as "weasel words" probably won't go over too well with a lot of people. But before you discount me as an apostate and worthy of excommunication, let me preface my blog with this: Thanks in part to the printing press, WordPress, and Facebook, We can quote other people and turn a sound bite into a thesis for our own purposes. Billy isn't writing here to further explain his words, but nevertheless, others use his words to promote a theology that is deceptive and that is what I want to point out.

1. wea·sel words

   noun

   1. words or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading.

   
   





"It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict. God's job to judge, and my job to love."
In other words, We preachers can say things we know will be interpreted as disapproval of other people's way of life and may likely make other people feel terrible, but weasel out of it by claiming that any conviction felt by the listeners must come only from God; our only intention is to love people. So we describe our responsibility as "to love" and God's responsibility "to convict and to judge". We love the sinner, and God hates the sin. God is the source of conviction and judgement. There's a huge problem with this kind of role play. It results in abuse in the name of God. Hey- It's not our fault you feel bad after what we said! Take it up with God - Maybe you will feel better after you repent and start to see things our way.
If conviction in the human heart comes only through the Holy Spirit, then explain the guilt felt by a woman who is assaulted by an abusive husband. Explain also the sense of guilty sin experienced by children who are constantly told they are no good and bad because they were speaking their native language in an Indian residential school. Explain also why Huckleberry Finn felt extreme conviction and in danger of hell-fire when he made his decision to help Jim escape from slavery.
The trouble is, people want to look like the good guy, the nice boss. Such people may actually not love other people, or accept the social norms of people different from themselves; but they want to look good and kind and loving. So they speak vehemently against others, but declare that within themselves, there is not a judgmental bone in their bodies. Their love is pure, and if what they say hurts anyone, it must be God at work because conviction and judgement are his domain.
I believe a more scriptural view and one more consistent with Jesus' message would be that we are co-labourors with God and the degree of our usefulness to Him in the establishment of His Kingdom is in direct proportion to how well our words line up with His Heart. We are called to admonish, rebuke and exhort but the subject matter had better line up with what Jesus indicated was important to God, and not simply be an imposition of our own paradigms: reflections of the culture we are most influenced by and readily accept as "God's Way". Depending upon when in history various Christians have been born, "God's Way" has been among other things capitalism, communism, slavery, the abolition of slavery, conquest of lands by warfare, emancipation of women, the refusal of permitting women to vote, child labour, and a myriad of other ideologies that cover everything from hair length, the wearing of hats, Sunday shopping, marriage and the right to bear arms.
Care is needed I say, lest we become a clanging bell or an irritating cymbal. Or worse, that we (although we blame God for the guilty sensations) lay upon others, burdens of guilt that we are not willing to ease.


Luke 11:46  "Yes," said Jesus, "what sorrow also awaits you experts in religious law! For you crush people with unbearable religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden. NLT 

Not convinced?  Then what would you say if I preached against women cutting their hair, and refusing to wear hats in public?  Many Christians would smile quietly to themselves, almost embarrassed for me. That's not in vogue now a days! Our present culture doesn't have a problem with those things. That preacher is embarrassing to God and the Christian cause!  Then, what if I were successful - if I convinced the women and they felt real guilt and conviction because they had not been wearing hats? Then many Christians would say I was manipulating them. That is, many Christians here- in the West, in 2014. Christians on the other side of the world or living in a different era may give credit to God for providing the conviction. What? I thought God doesn't change?  
Well, we better all be careful what societal norms we preach against this year - lest history prove we were preaching our own tastes and were loading burdens (guilt) on the backs of people that the Lord never meant them to bear. After all, our Lord's command is "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you". Matthew 28:20