“Judge Not!”

Notes taken by Keith Hassell from CD recording by Josh McDowell

I do not want to speak to your hearts tonight, I want to speak to your minds.

1 Chronicles 12:32  The sons of Issachar understood the times in order to know what to do.  This is my goal tonight.

The tragedy of the Twin Towers and the Pentegon.  I heard the President and pastors call this act evil.  The problem is that America has no right to judge what was done at the Towers.

The most often quoted verse today by young people is no longer John 3:16 but Matthew 7:1 taken totally out of context:  “Judge not lest you be judged.” 

• People believe that we should never judge anyone. 
• When we give up the right to judge, we give up the right to discern between good and evil.  We give up the right to discern the difference between Mohammed Attah and Mother Teresa.  Judge not lest you be judged!  We give up the right to discern between the killing fields of Cambodia and the wheat fields of Kansas. 

For the first time in American history we live not only in two distinct generations, but we live in two different cultures.  The same words mean two different things.

• Tolerance? 
• For the old culture, there were absolutes and accepted values.  Tolerance meant acknowledging the contradictory values, beliefs, and lifestyles of others without accepting or embracing them.
• For the new culture, tolerance is the willingness to accept the values, opinion, and beliefs of others.
• All values, beliefs, and lifestyles are equal. 
• All values, beliefs, and lifestyles have their value and worth.
• There is no intelligent way to discern between them. 
• Anytime you say that one moral belief is higher than another, then you have created moral hierarchy and you are a bigot.  If you disagree, then you are a bigot. 
• To say, “We are called to love the sinner and hate the sin” is considered a bigoted and intolerant statement.  You call what I do sin?
• Tolerance is the willingness to accept the ideas and beliefs of another as if they were your own. 
• Truth? 
• For Adults, truth is external vs. internal and can be discovered and applied to your life. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
• To the new culture, truth is not discovered but created.  All truth is manufactured and produced.  Truth is a matter of personal perspective and opinion. For them, the truth is that there is no truth.
• So how do you discern between Mohammed Attah vs. Mother Teresa?
• Dr. Kaputo: “The cold hermeneutic truth is the truth that there is no truth.”
• Richard Roerdie (University of Virginia): “For the pragmatist, true sentences are not true because they correspond to reality.  No need to worry about reality.  No need to worry what makes it true.”  Why? Because all truth is manufactured.  All truth is personal.
• Decerto (French theorist):  “When historians write, they are not recording history, they are manufacturing history.”
• Haden White (Professor of History and Consciousness at the University of California in Santa Cruz):  “Truth is produced, not found.”
• Hans Kenart (Professor of Rhetoric Historical Discourse at UT Arlington):  “I would like to clarify my position and say that truth ceased to be relation and has became a judgment.”  In other words, truth has nothing to do with a relationship with reality.  It has everything to do with your judgment, perspective, and choice.
• Thomas Helbrook (executive vice president of the national Lamba Kai Alpha fraternity) in describing tolerance and truth today said:  “Every person’s individual beliefs, values, lifestyles, and perception of truth claims are equal.  There is no hierarchy of truth.  Your beliefs and my beliefs are equal and all truth is relative.”
• Edwin Delatra (Dean of Boston School of Education) in describing today’s “Enlightenment” said, “It involves the elevation of all values, all beliefs, all truth to a position worthy of equal respect.”  Mohammed Attah?  Timothy McVeigh? Osama Bin Laden?
• Judge Danny Boggs (Judge of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal) said, “Not only do adherents of all faiths deserve equal rights as citizens, but all faiths are equally valid.”  Mohammed Attah’s faith is equally valid?
• In the legislation regarding the National Endowment of Arts, the U.S. Congress declared, “The arts and humanities reflect the high place accorded by American people to the nation’s rich cultural heritage and to the fostering of mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all persons and groups.”
• New York Board of Regents:  “Each student will develop the ability to understand, respect, and accept people of different races, sex, culture, heritage, national origin, religion, political, economic, social background and their values, beliefs, and attitudes.”
• Textbook for Sixth Graders, Economics Today and Tomorrow, asked, “Can we say that the growth of government is good or bad?  Is there an answer to such a debate?  Not really.  Because the side that one takes depends on one’s values. No right or wrong answers exist when values are at stake.”
• Kenneth Stearns says, “We need young people interpret our realities differently and there is no one perspective that defines the truth.”  Then how can you judge Mohammed Attah and Alqeida?
• Dr. Robert Simon (Professor of History at Hamilton College in Indiana) says that he never met a student that had denied the holocaust happened.  What he sees recently is far worse.  He said that his students now acknowledge the fact of the holocaust but cannot bring themselves to say that the killing of millions of people is wrong. He said that upwards of 20% of his students are reluctant to make moral judgments even about the holocaust.  While these students may deplore what the Nazi’s did and the terrorists, their disapproval is expressed as a matter of personal taste, of personal preference, not moral judgment.  One student said, “Of course, I dislike the Nazi’s, but who am I to say that they are morally wrong?”
• Respect?  I respect that your claim to truth is equal to my own and I mean that from the heart.
• Acceptance?  I accept you as you are without judging your values, perspective, or opinions.
• Values Clarification? 
• In the Values Clarification Handbook of Strategies for Teachers and Students, it says, “Designed to engage students and teachers in the active formulation of values.  It does not teach a particular set of values.  There is no sermonizing, no moralizing.  The goal is involve students in practical experiences making them aware of their own feelings, their own ideas, their own beliefs, so that their choices and the decisions they make are conscious and deliberate based upon their own value system.”  Then how can you judge Mohammed Attah?
• This is My Country, Teacher’s Guide (4th Grade), “This section describes the goal of helping students progress to higher order skills in thinking…critical thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or what to do.”
• A values clarification illustration commonly used today:  Ten people in a sinking lifeboat that can only hold six.  Students are invested with the authority to decide who lives and who dies:  the famous author, the pregnant woman, the rabbi, the policeman, the Hollywood dancer, etc. Students are taught in the book that there are no right and wrong answers.  “Whatever each student feels comfortable is right.  A student can determine different drowning targets or whatever for there are no right or wrong answers.”  So who will you kill and who will you let live?  Eric Harris and Dillan Clebo did this at Columbine.  Harris posted this on his internet web page:  “My belief is that if I say something, it goes.  I am the law.  Feel no remorse. Your children who have ridiculed me and chosen not to accept me who have treated me as if I am not worth their time, they are dead.  They are _______, _______, _______ dead.”  According to values clarification that is acceptable.  List who you will kill and the order in which you will kill them and why.  This is what Mohammed Attah did.
• (Josh McDowell’s daughter’s class at school) Values clarification illustration of 11 people in a boat that can only hold 7. The instructions were “You must kill four.  List them in the order that you would kill them, indicate the reasons for your selection, why you chose a particular person, why you chose a particular order. There is no right or wrong answer.” 
• Number one was Mrs. Dane, age 38, white, Jewish, slightly obese, diabetic, counselor in Mental Health, married to Dr. Dane with one child. 
• Number two was Bobby Dane, age 10, white, Jewish, mentally retarded, IQ of 70. 
• Number three was Mr. Blake, age 51, white, Mormon, BS in mechanics, married with four children, sympathizes with anti-black views. 
• Number four was Dr. Gonzales, age 66, Spanish American two heart attacks.
• The Civics for Americans textbook says, “When faced with a decision you should ask yourself three questions:  What are my alternatives?  What are the likely consequences or outcome? And “Which consequence do I prefer?  Then make your choice.”  This is what Mohammed Attah did.
• World History, The Human Experience by Magraw Hill: “When you are making a decision you are making a choice between alternatives.  There are five steps. First, identify the problem. Second, identify and consider various alternatives.  Three, determine the consequences of each alternative. Four, evaluate the consequences. Fifth, ask yourself which alternative seems to have more positive consequences, which seems to have more negative consequences, then make your own decision.”  That is exactly what Mohammed Attah did.
• Marvin Ollasky (University of Texas):  “When my Christian students sometimes say that when their personal beliefs contradict those taught by the church, they say, ‘I make my decision based on what I feel is right.’”
• Susan Egger (St. Louis Dispatch, March 20, 1996, page 3E) in an article and column called “Ruminations of morality, cruelty, and intolerance” gave this advice to young people in making moral decisions:  “We each might spend some invigorating hours some day charting our very own moral standards, ranking human behavior from the most to the least effective.”  That is what Mohammed Attah did.  He made a list and went out and executed it.
• A 16 year old Baptist high school girl who is the leading female in their youth group whose parents are very active in the church was asked to write an article for her school newspaper. This is what she wrote:  “What is truth?  Is it always the same?  I don’t think so. Truth changes constantly with time. It always varies from person to person.  Why? If all truth is personal, if all truth is created, then all truth must vary from person to person and from different circumstances.  What is true today will not be true tomorrow.  What was true yesterday is not true today.  Therefore there is no absolute truth.”
• After Columbine they did a nationwide study to find out how do kids make moral choices.  One 12th grader girl, Dawn Almond, summed it up: “People should make their own decisions.  I am strong enough to make my own decisions and instill my own morals and ethics to live by.”
• Ron Taffel, PhD, marriage and family therapy counselor in an article called Teaching Moral Values to Your Children in Parenting Magazine said:  “Now it is not my business (or anyone else’s for that matter) to tell you what you stand for.  It is my job as a family therapist to help families to communicate about the issues that mean the most to them.”
• Critical thinking? 
• Critical thinking used to mean teaching people to think on their own.
• In education today, critical thinking has nothing to do with truth.  If it did, then you are teaching a value or a moral.
• Values clarifications teachers are not to teach but to be facilitators so that students can discover their own set of values and truth.
• Dr. Raymond English said “Critical thinking not only means learning how to think for oneself, but also means learning how to subvert the traditional values in our society.  You are not thinking critically if you are accepting the values that mommy and daddy taught you.  That’s not critical.”

We have lost the right to judge the Twin Towers bombing.

Do you think the church is outside of this?

Poll among born again Christian kids mostly from Baptist and Assembly of God churches:

• There is no such thing as absolute truth.  Two people can define truth in totally conflicting ways and both can be correct.  78% agreed
• There is no absolute truth.  62% agreed
• There is no way to tell which religion is true.  65% agreed
• It doesn’t matter which religion faith you follow because they all faiths teach the same lessons.   60% agreed
• Doubt anything to be known for certain except the things that you experience in life.  72% agreed
• People may define truth in contradictory ways and be correct.  81%
• When it comes to matters of morals and ethics, truth means different things to different people. No one can be absolutely positive that they have the truth.  70% agreed
• The only intellectual way to live is to make the best decision you can in every situation based upon your feelings at the moment.      52% agreed

The church lost the right to judge.  If the church does not reverse this, and God doesn’t judge the church, then He will owe a big apology to Sodom and Gomorrah.

We have to take our children from beliefs to convictions. 

• Less than 2% of kids in church have convictions. 
• They all have beliefs about Jesus, the Bible, the resurrection, etc.  But 30% of their beliefs will not be biblical. 
• Without convictions our kids will not survive.

How do you present truth in a culture that believes all truth is equal?  (This is the question of the 21st century.)

Questions asked to High School and College Students

• Do you believe the Bible is the word of God? Do you believe it is true?  Do you believe that it is historically accurate and reliable?  Why? 
• In asking this question I have received at least 50 answers. The most common answer is that the Bible is true because they believe it.  Is it true for the kids at school?  No, not unless they believe it. 
• You see what happens?  Belief in the means to create truth.  People now believe that something is true if they believe it.  It is not true for those who do not believe it.  The same is true of the Muslims with the Koran.

One of the greatest heresies today is salvation by faith.

• It is causing more people to turn away from God than anything else. 
• We are not saved by faith.  If you could be saved by faith, then you wouldn’t need Jesus.  You could build up all of your faith in a microphone to save you and still go to hell.
• It is the object of our faith that saves us.  The value of our faith is in the One believed, not in the one believing. 
• The key to faith is not in the one trusting but in the One trusted. 
• The efficacy of faith is not in the one exercising the faith but in the One in whom the faith is exercised in. 
• We are not saved by faith but by grace through faith---in Jesus. 
• If you remove Jesus, then you can have all of the grace and faith you want and it will not save you.
• If the object of your faith is not solid, then you can believe all you want and go straight to hell. 
• If Jesus is not the Christ, the Son of God, then our faith is in vain.  The apostle Paul said, If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our faith is in vain. 

For most young people faith is the means by which they create the truth in which they believe.

• When Christian kids say that they believe in Jesus Christ as their savior, they mean that it became true for them when they believed it.  But it is not true for others if they do not believe it.  Therefore, who am I to judge those who choose not to believe what I believe?

Do you believe lying is wrong?  Why?  Do you believe killing is wrong?  Why?

• “Because the Bible says we shall not kill.” 
• Why does the Bible say we should not kill?
• Most would say that it is because it hurts people and God.
• So therefore, if it doesn’t hurt people, then it is okay, right?
• We can’t judge the Towers because we don’t even know why killing is wrong.
• “Because my parents taught me.” 
• What about the parents of Mohammed Attah? 
• Nothing is right or wrong because you parents taught you something.  Otherwise anything is right or wrong based on what our parents tell us.

Nothing is morally right or wrong because the Bible or the Ten Commandments say it is wrong.

• Those who say this are teaching unadulterated legalism. Jesus spoke out about this.
• The Ten Commandments are a reflection of truth but they do not establish it. 
• Observation:  The Koran says “Thou shalt not.” 

Why does the Bible say, “Thou shalt not lie?” 

• The answer is:  Because God is truth.  Not because the Bible says it. 
• Every single commandment of Scripture is a reflection of the very person, character and nature of God who is outside of us, above us, and beyond us. He is the only true universal.  The Bible is not.  The person, character, and nature of God is. 
• The Bible is the reflection of who God is. 
• I don’t want to take my kids back to the reflection, but to the God of the reflection.  I don’t want my kids growing up responding to the word of God.  I want my children growing up through the word of God knowing their God in a personal way and responding morally, ethically out of a relationship, not out of legalism. 
• It is an issue of relationship. Without relationship, the commandments become legalism.
• Why is lying wrong?  Because God is truth. 
• Why is killing wrong?  Because God is life. 
• Why is it wrong to hate?  Because God is love. 
• Why do we avoid works of darkness?  Because God is light.
• Why do what is right?  Because God is righteous.
• Why do what is just?  Because God is just.
• The basis of right and wrong is not the Bible but is the person, character, and nature of God who has revealed Himself through the Bible. 
• I don’t want to take my kids back to the Bible and stop there. I want to take to the God of the Bible. Then they are responding to a person out of a relationship and not out of legalism. 
• Yes, we should tell people that something is wrong because the Bible says it is wrong.  But don’t stop there.  Tell them that the reason that the Bible says that it is wrong is because of who God is.

What about those who don’t believe in God?  At this point we go to Evidence that Demands a Verdict.

If the preachers are foggy on this, then the congregation will be smoggy.