INTERESTING REVERSAL

 

     Deprecation of the critical spirit often takes a curious
turn: opposition is expressed against the critic rather than
the one who provoked the criticism. The one who violates
the moral law, or departs from sound principles, will often
get more support than the one who objects. Those guilty of
scandal will be defended against the critic of the scandal. It
seems at times to be worse to expose a scandal than to
commit it.

 

     Surely there is a strange reversal of values in our
day. To expose scandal, to protest against wrong, is to
expose oneself to the charge of "mud-slinging"; so, much

sin remains unexposed and unrebuked. Many therefore are
permitted to pursue their destructive course unexposed; so
that many are deceived and led astray. Edmund Burke once
said that "evil can triumph if good men will keep still." By a
strange confusion of values good men today who refuse to
keep silent are treated with more intolerance than the
perpetrators of the evil deed.

 

     The function of criticism must not be hindered, or
corruption will go on unexposed and unchecked. The right
to criticize moral wrong is a moral right. The duty to
criticize or expose wrong is a God-given duty. When this
right is criticized by a morally tolerant society or the
ethically shiftless, it is an evidence of the moral flabbiness

of those who object to moral criticism and not a mark of
superior piety as some suppose. The widespread depreca-

tion of the critical spirit is a mark of the excessive moral
tolerance of our times. The fact that the right of criticism is
abused is no reason for abolishing it.

 

--by  Chester E. Tulga

 

(The Doctrine of Right and Wrong in These Times, c. 1954)

 

 From Focus on Missions

 

INTERESTING REVERSAL

 

     Deprecation of the critical spirit often takes a curious
turn: opposition is expressed against the critic rather than
the one who provoked the criticism. The one who violates
the moral law, or departs from sound principles, will often
get more support than the one who objects. Those guilty of
scandal will be defended against the critic of the scandal. It
seems at times to be worse to expose a scandal than to
commit it.

 

     Surely there is a strange reversal of values in our
day. To expose scandal, to protest against wrong, is to
expose oneself to the charge of "mud-slinging"; so, much

sin remains unexposed and unrebuked. Many therefore are
permitted to pursue their destructive course unexposed; so
that many are deceived and led astray. Edmund Burke once
said that "evil can triumph if good men will keep still." By a
strange confusion of values good men today who refuse to
keep silent are treated with more intolerance than the
perpetrators of the evil deed.

 

     The function of criticism must not be hindered, or
corruption will go on unexposed and unchecked. The right
to criticize moral wrong is a moral right. The duty to
criticize or expose wrong is a God-given duty. When this
right is criticized by a morally tolerant society or the
ethically shiftless, it is an evidence of the moral flabbiness

of those who object to moral criticism and not a mark of
superior piety as some suppose. The widespread depreca-

tion of the critical spirit is a mark of the excessive moral
tolerance of our times. The fact that the right of criticism is
abused is no reason for abolishing it.

 

--by  Chester E. Tulga

 

(The Doctrine of Right and Wrong in These Times, c. 1954)

 

 From Focus on Missions