TWO KINDS OF CRITICS

There is a difference between those who see a problem and with good will, desire to help fix it and those who look for flaws and failures to justify attaching the person, institution or church they hold in low esteem. The former group help us grow. Their criticisms are to be cherished (Prov.  25:12). The latter crowd discourage and destroy those that they propose to help. Edmund Burke asked, “Is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed?  The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task.”  Beaconsville wrote, “It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.” David was the victim of men who”sharpened their tongue like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips” (Ps. 140:3).

A certain class of political liberals see no good in America and thus they magnify every fault and problem.  They seem to hate the nation of their nativity and wish her ill in her undertakings. So do religious liberals treat the church. They see no good in her. They exaggerate every flaw and failure.  They hold up her shortcomings for public ridicule.  They treat their spiritual predecessors with contempt.  They are spiritually arrogant and reflect an air of superiority toward the common folk of the church.  They hold in admiration, the religious bodies around us who embrace doctrines and practices patently foreign to Scripture. They dare to lay their profane hands on the sacred things of the Lord’s church, his bride; her worship, her doctrines, her practices.  They destroy the church they inherited from their fathers in the faith. They do so, while  assuring us that they are doing so for beneficial purposes and our own good. Such is a fair description of the change agents at work among our churches.

Such destructive criticism is not new. Through the years, wise men have observed it at work and passed harsh judgments against it.

	J. C. Sharpe understood that “Criticism is not religion, and by no process can it be substituted for it”
	H. C. Trumbull believed that “An over-readiness to criticize or to depreciate a minister of Christ is proof of a lack of devotion to Christ.
	Washington Irvin opined, “There is a certain meddlesome spirit which, in the garb of learned research, goes prying about the traces of history, casting down its monuments, and marring and mutilating its fairest trophies.  Care should be taken to vindicate great names from such pernicious erudition.”
	Addison rightly observed, “I never knew a critic who made it his business to lash the faults of other writers that was not guilty of greater himself...as the hangman is generally a worse malefactor than the criminal that suffers by his hand” Henry Longfellow wrote, “Some critics are like chimney-sweepers; they put out the fire below, and frighten the swallows from their nest above; they scrape a long time in the chimney, cover themselves with soot, and bring nothing away but a bag of cinders, and then sing out from the top of the house, as if they had built it.”

Let this be our daily prayer: “Lord, save me from critical fault-finding habits into which so many people fall.  Keep my heart tender, sympathetic and hopeful. Help me to be firm and steadfast in my loyalty to truth and always clear as to what truth is.” (Unknown).