"Judge not, that you may not be judged"

Jesus has some strong words to say about judging others:

Judge not, that you may not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of thy eye; and behold a beam is in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. [Matthew 7:1-5]

Of course, whenever one talks or even thinks about this whole question of judging others, one risks falling into the trap of judging judgmental people for their judgmentalism, and so ending up like the Pharisee in the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee:

Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this publican. I fast twice in a week: I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: O God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say to you, this man went down into his house justified rather than the other: because every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted. [Luke 18:10-14]

The Epistle of Saint James offers a corrective to the kind of judgmentalism that arises out of “bitter zeal” – a kind of zeal (often a zeal for that which is in itself good and true and holy) to which all believers are prone when we feel threatened or attacked or powerless in the face of what is going on in the Church and in the world (it’s well worth reading Madame Evangelista’s post on this):

Who is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you? Let him shew, by a good conversation, his work in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter zeal, and there be contentions in your hearts; glory not....But the wisdom that is from above first indeed is chaste, then peaceable, modest, easy to be persuaded, consenting to the good, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without dissimulation. And the fruit of justice is sown in peace, to them that make peace. [James 3:13-18]

Anyone who cares about things that matter is going to be guilty of “bitter zeal” from time to time – it comes with the territory. However, the following quotation from St Seraphim of Sarov (a saint of the Orthodox Church) which has recently appeared on a couple of Orthodox blogs (Salt of the Earth and Mind in the Heart) suggests that a tendency to judgmentalism and bitter zeal (including the kind that condemns judgmentalism and bitter zeal in others, and including the kind that is sincere in its defence of that which is good and true and holy) requires a radical reappraisal of our own inner life:

You cannot be too gentle, too kind. Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other. Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of him who gives and kindles joy in the heart of him who receives. All condemnation is from the devil. Never condemn each other. We condemn others only because we shun knowing ourselves. When we gaze at our own failings, we see such a swamp that nothing in another can equal it. That is why we turn away, and make much of the faults of others. Instead of condemning others, strive to reach inner peace. Keep silent, refrain from judgment. This will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult and outrage and will shield your glowing hearts against all evil.

Which is not, of course, to say that we should refrain from speaking out on behalf of that which is good and true and against that which is wicked and false. It is, however, to say that, if that is what we are going to do, we probably need to measure the way we go about doing it against the kind of standard laid down by St James, and we need to be sure that, in expressing our anger or outrage or sense of injustice (all of which may at one level be entirely justified), we are not damaging our inner life.