Brimstone: The Art and Act of Holy Non-judgment

by Hugh Halter

I hope the title of this book intrigues you enough to read it. Hugh Halter examines how followers of Christ can represent their Lord properly in a dysfunctional and sinful society without alienating the very people who most need God’s love and the gospel. How do we maintain our integrity with regard to God’s righteous standards of behavior without appearing self-righteous and judgmental? How do we engage godless and immoral people without compromising our own dedication to God? My summary will follow the chapters of the book and will contain numerous quotes with a little commentary on my part.

The Coming Wrath: How Did We Get So Mean?

Here’s another way to think of judgment: after very careful and discerning thought, the conclusion you reach is a judgment. It should be based in wisdom, truth, and knowledge and delivered for the practical good. This is why Jesus still likes and levels judgments, and it’s why I personally am glad judgment exists. (Halter, Hugh (2015-07-01). Brimstone: The Art and Act of Holy Nonjudgment (Kindle Locations [KL] 231-233). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition.)

What I am arguing for is removing, or at least decreasing, the amount of lousy judgment that we pour over ourselves and, consequently, everyone else. No, our problem is not judgment itself. It’s the lack of right discernment, the absence of perfect knowledge, the void of righteous reasoning that creates the buzz saw of trite, dehumanizing black-and-white lines. When Jesus died on the cross, He put an end to this kind of condemnation, litigation, separation, and poor judgment. The reason for His incarnation (Jesus coming as a human) was so that judgment could be averted rather than leveled.  (KL 236-243)

Halter argues that the original sin of partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the root of destructive judging. We think we know enough to level judgments at others.

Well, this is really the story behind God’s forbidden fruit. I’ve always wondered what God was afraid of, and when I hear Satan’s lie, I actually sort of agree with him: Why doesn’t God want us to know everything? Why doesn’t He let us know the differences between good and evil? Now I get it. God knew it was simply too much info for us to handle, and history has proven it a few kabillion times over. The most dangerous knowledge in the world is the knowledge of good and evil for one glaring reason: we don’t steward the knowledge well at all. Most of the time we get it wrong, and when we do, we really make things worse. (KL 294-299)

The Coming Son: Who Gets the Gavel?

…people see what they already believe, and the job of a great attorney is to convince people to see beyond their existing beliefs. Apparently, there are only two ways to change a bias: One is by having an experience that is so emotional it changes your perspective. The other is by listening to someone you trust to be an authority. (KL 347-349)

Citing John 5:22-30, Halter writes:

Jesus has the authority to judge, and He judges correctly, but He generally chooses not to judge people? He can make right judgments if He wants to, but His intent is not to use His authority to “get us.” There’s no condemnation in His judgment! Did you catch that? He doesn’t come into the world with the desire to punish us or push us into the lake of burning brimstone. His intention is exactly the opposite— He came to save. This is a really important nuance about Jesus that we often miss.

This is a very unique point about how we are to relate to people who are screwing up their lives or the lives of others. We may have enough knowledge to make a correct judgment over them, but if we take our cues from Jesus, we will realize we don’t need to impose our judgment. Eventually every sin will be uncovered, and in time people will confront their sin all on their own. If we judge them, our condemnation might make them flee back into the dark, but if we stand in God’s light without condemnation, He may use us to encourage others to come out of the dark. (KL 417-421)

Here is a summary of the main thoughts in this chapter.

• • Jesus is the only final and safe, authority and judge.
  • Judgment is good if it leads to justice and redemption. It is for this reason that Jesus came into the world.
  • Judgment without these purposes is actually counterproductive to God’s kingdom design.
  • People are already under judgment even without our judging them. They are either hiding in the dark or walking toward the light.
  • Jesus really came to judge Satan and bad judges (which includes many Christians).
  • We no longer have to worry about pointing out people’s darkness.
  • We get to live as light and draw people to the light, where Jesus can naturally change them. (KL 472-485)

Don’t Be a Stoner: Time to Drop the Rocks

We should be rigorous in judging ourselves and gracious in judging others. —John Wesley (KL 488-489)

In this chapter Halter contrasts the position of standing apart from “sinners” in judgment and coming alongside them to advocate for them.

Most people live with a deep sense of insecurity, self-loathing, and unworthiness. When we bring these broken identities to Jesus, He heals us; if we don’t, then we mask our pain behind judgments over others. This is why people are drawn to gossip or the latest tabloid dirt on a small scale and become racist bigots on a large scale. We just love to see people who are worse than we are so that in our surface comparisons we come out smelling just a little less musty. (KL 561-564)

Halter’s chapter summary is as follows:

• If you sin at all, you have no reason to judge those you don’t know.
• If you sin at all, you have no reason to judge those you do know.
• Jesus protected the life of a sinner, and that makes Him an advocate for people who sin.
• Jesus can’t stand people who try to catch Him in “the letter of the law” scenarios.
• Jesus was the only person in the adulteress’s story who was able to influence her life.
• Jesus was full of grace, and therefore He got a chance to share truth. (KL 675-680)

Halter explains that this is good news for the follower of Christ because:

• Now that we don’t have to worry about another person’s sliver, we get to use that time to work on our own plank.
• This is a great week to simply thank Jesus for applying all of His righteousness to you. You no longer have to be a self-righteous hypocrite.
• This means you can now be a beautifully gentle, humble friend for those who are struggling around you. (KL 689-692)

Hinge Point: The World Hangs in the Balance

Citing an actual confrontation between an activist church which picketed a topless club and the club’s owner and workers, Halter writes:

But the gospel of Jesus is about gentle persuasion through respected friendships, not violent confrontation with enemies. This is what we can call a hinge point. Everything hinges upon us living this balance of vertical personal commitment to Jesus without imposing horizontally upon the humans around us. (KL 782-784)

At this point Halter seamlessly transitions to share some thoughts about how followers of Christ can be good fishers of men by applying principles of holy non-judgment to their relationships.

First, neighbors aren’t thinking about how to love you. This is not a two-way street. You’ve got to be the one to initiate contact and then continue to initiate contact, and the only thing you should be trying to do with your neighbors is to get their stories and make friends. Remember that Jesus was called a friend of sinners, which means that although He lived in a way that was miles more holy than they did, He still tucked His moral superiority under His tunic and spent consistent time after work, on weekends, and in early mornings getting to know people at the heart level. So no matter what Google reveals about your neighbors or what you’ve heard them scream at their kids or spouses through open windows, you must not make any judgments early on. In the Halter family story, we’ve had many neighbors find faith in Christ and eventually make their way into our churches, but every one of these required twenty to thirty dinners, happy hours, golf outings, and poker nights to get a real picture of who they were. (KL 792-799)

Halter argues that the greatest sins a follower of Christ can commit are connected to a failure to love God preeminently and to heavily invest in (love) our neighbors.

As with most parables or stories of Jesus, we are supposed to process this one from all angles. So to say that the greatest commandment is to love God with everything you’ve got and to love your neighbors as much as you love yourself also means that the greatest sin may be to love God haphazardly, only on weekends, or only when you need something from Him, while at the same time having no real interest in caring for, loving on, doing a barbeque with, or even getting to know the names of your neighbors. Isn’t it amazing how we’ve made swearing, having sex before marriage, watching R-rated movies, and having a beer with dinner and a joint for dessert seem like sins damnable by the eternal fires of hell, but we continue to ignore Jesus’s statement on the greatest commandments and greatest sins? (KL 823-829)

Halter next introduces a term he coined in an earlier book – whimsical holiness. It’s an odd sounding concept on the surface, but when the reader considers how he defines it, it makes sense.

Here’s a little bonus tip that I’ve found helpful to keep my wits about me as I live next to these wild Vikings we call sinners, pagans, and wacko unbelievers while keeping my vertical relationship with God strong. It’s called “whimsical holiness,” which is the ability to hold on to personal values of Christlikeness while being deeply in relationship with people who do not hold your same convictions. In other words, it’s about keeping a sense of humor while keeping a sense of holiness. (KL 830-834)

God has been to the brothels, the bars, and the back alleys of Sin City. People with Jesus’s whimsical holiness don’t gasp when someone curses. They don’t avoid a group of people, a place, or a party because someone might get out of hand. They inhabit dark places with the intention of protecting and redeeming, befriending and befuddling people with acceptance and love. They win the lost because they’re the only ones who hang out with the lost. This is the power of incarnation (living our human life like Jesus lived His) and the character of whimsical holiness with which every Christian must learn to clothe him- or herself. Redemption, liberation, and sanctification are dirty jobs. The dirtiest! And to follow Christ is to jump into pain, hell, and all kinds of sinful acts without an arrogant, finger-pointing, judgmental thought. (KL 845-851)

Halter’s chapter summary is excellent.

• We don’t influence culture by yelling at it.
• Confronting sin without first influencing the heart creates more space between us and them.
• We never have to fear what the culture calls acceptable because we are always free to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
• We should never impose our vertical moral commitments to God upon the horizontal plane of relationships, especially our neighbors. (KL 852-856)
  

Missing-ology: Nonjudgment 401

How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly. —Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters (KL 867-868)

Being sent is part and parcel of being in the family of God— He wants us to be on mission with Him. It’s an aspect of our new identity. We are redeemed and then sent back as missionary saints. I suspect Jesus knows that when we abstain from the world, we actually become more susceptible to spiritual sickness. (KL 904-906)

Halter argues that when the church fortresses up and builds religious barriers between itself and the people who need the Gospel, we err exceedingly.

So the first adjustment we must consider is that the Bible is not a spiritual formation guide for missionless sermon-mongers. It does not call you to holiness without calling you to hang with the world at the exact same time. (KL 952-954)

Halter, throughout the book, walks the tension-filled tightrope between the holiness of God and being on mission to a lost and sinful world. He acknowledges that God requires holiness and that we must often make mention of that fact. However, he insists that we must do this in a spirit of humility. As one of our community pastors is famous for saying, “I’m a Christian, but I’m not very good at it.” This admission defuses any accusation that Christians are hypocrites. We just admit it upfront.

Does this mean that we never bring up our failures and sin? Does it mean we, as friends of normal people, never discuss or bring up ideas of how to live better? Of course not. All Paul is showing is that if we put ourselves in the list [of sinful behavior] and if we openly discuss our own sin, it will be easier to have these discussions without any sense of elite judgmentalism. (KL 999-1001)

Halter ends this chapter by summarizing three ways this is good news for followers of Christ.

• Your job isn’t to end every conversation with “truth”; instead, it is to keep the conversation running.
• You can trust God to reveal Himself over time as you keep learning Scripture together.
• You will grow because you no longer view your beliefs as right but stay postured as a learner and a child before Jesus every day. (KL 1093-1096)

Street-Level Saints

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, so clearly truth is important to Him. But for Jesus, truth isn’t abstract truth. It isn’t just information or concepts to consider. For Jesus truth is Him: His ways, His reality offered to people. As such, Jesus cares most about our response to truth and the level at which it is accepted, received, or followed. In other words, a follower of Jesus should be as concerned about helping people want to come toward the truth as he is about the truth itself. Another way to say it is that our missionary call is about creating an atmosphere in which people are drawn to the truth, come to respect the person in which truth is found, and accept the truth personally. (KL 1101-1106)

In this chapter Halter argues that in the church we should accept Christ’s norms for godly behavior without feeling that we are required to impose these standards on those who are still seekers. Even in the church, however, we must show mercy and love in our judgment.

This scripture is not, as some believe, a carte blanche permission slip to be brutal to each other. (KL 1139)

Halter illustrates that the church as a whole fails miserably in this regard by referencing the frequent use of Facebook and other social media to castigate people.

Oh, how this would change the world if we really believed what Jesus believes about people and how to approach them. We must altogether stop making pronouncements; we must stop publishing our stance; we must stop calling out people we don’t agree with; and we must, at all cost, say to anyone who puts his faith in Jesus that we are all a part of one big, weird, wacko family of ruffians. And when we do, the world might judge us as finally worthy to hang out with. (KL 1253-1256)

Our Clandestine Calling: Rethinking Reconciliation

You can tell when you’ve created God in your own image when He hates the same people you do. – Tom Weston

This is important because relinquishing your judgment requires that you see people in the context of process— even their sin and sinful patterns of behavior. Your goal should not be to completely, instantaneously change the other person but rather to encourage simple movement forward. (KL 1498-1500)

Let me ask in the simplest way I can: How can you influence people when you don’t allow them to be with you? We don’t get to keep people out of the kingdom of God, but we do get to draw people in. We cannot demonstrate the gospel while at the same time demonstrating against a person’s sin or lifestyle choices. (KL 1580-1582)

…we want the world to see His power. But it doesn’t happen when we’re afraid of culture or proud about our morals. We must instead look for every opportunity to place our way of life, based on our faith, smack-dab next to the world’s disbelief without judging or requiring them to live like us. There’s nothing to fear. God’s got this. (KL 1603-1605)

Look, I’m not trying to get you to just be neutral in the world. I want you to be able to share your faith, and I want you to wear Jesus on your sleeve. The kingdom is shown, but it is also proclaimed— and the two go hand in hand when people look each other in the eye, drop the religious BS, and are simply kind to one another. The gospel is generous and subversive, not offensive and obtrusive. (KL 1621-1623)

What about All the Butts, I Mean Buts?

Jesus was an advocate for sinners when they were under judgment or isolation from other religious people. Be it the woman caught in adultery or all the tax collectors in town, Jesus defended anyone who was ostracized or minimized, and He wants you to do the same. The best way to bring this up is not to bring it up but to simply engage those who are under judgment. The word will get out, and when other friends or family members bring it up (and they will), that’s a really cool time to simply say, “I love him because I know God does.” They may spit and sputter, and over time you’ll either influence the way they think or you won’t, but the person you are loving will always remember the Jesus follower who didn’t judge him. And that will pay off. (KL 1736-1741)

The Final Appeal

First of all, for most of my life I thought the job of a Christian was to err on the side of truth… If I made truth the main thing, then I didn’t have to worry about my posture with people— I didn’t have to relate to them, befriend them, or include them in my life. But as a father and a friend, I’ve learned that truth is received only when it is presented from a posture of love. I don’t believe love is more important than truth, but I now believe that love must come before truth. That’s what the incarnation of Jesus shows us. He came as love to us, as a friend, and therefore (meaning, after that) we began to accept His truth. (KL 1873-1879)

Halter concludes his book by answering a question he posed at the beginning. How should we respond if asked to attend a gay friend’s wedding? I imagine you might guess his position, but, if you have been intrigued by my summary, perhaps you will want to read the entire book. It’s worth your time.