Exposing the Need to Offend

On Gentleness and Offensiveness IV

Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of our age is the idea that causing personal offence through disagreement is, or ought to be, a heinous crime.

The transgender revolution and the litany of cancelled and socially maimed victims who dared to oppose it, is a perfect example of this. The recent re-viralling of Matt Walsh’s documentary, “What Is a Woman?” showcased the responses of several expert advocates for transgender ideology outright refusing to engage with questions about their grasp of truth or reality. However reasonably or gently the questions were asked, these individuals were ideologically pre-programmed to perceive any such questioning as a deeply offensive act.

This discernible trend in professionals who, in many cases, are paid to think critically and interpret diverse perspectives, is indicative of the problem Carl Trueman noted in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, where “expressive individualism” trumps the very idea of truth and even civility itself. We have elevated our self-identified projections of reality upon the world and we expect everyone else to affirm them, despite the categorical impossibility of this being in any way possible simultaneously. If others do not affirm our expressions, and especially if they question them, they are now deemed to be harmful.

Christians rightly believe that harming people is wrong. But we have imbibed some of western society’s ever-fluctuating principles about the implications of offence. As a result, we tend to invoke Biblical commands about gentleness and graciousness at particular moments in order to discourage people from speaking up against deeply held sins and untruths. More often than not, the Christian charged with offensiveness does not wish to seem ungracious and so often says nothing at all, or takes the edge off what they might be willing to say, if they ever get around to saying it at all.

Worse yet, they may chastise other Christians for speaking out a little too strongly, thus indirectly aiding the cause of the very thing they themselves ought to be opposing, and opposing the very people they ought to be supporting. A senior leader in the Church of England recently spoke out about the “aggressive” posture of some Christians towards transgender ideology. It was hard for some not to see this as itself an aggressive act towards such Christians.

When Grace Doesn’t “Sound” Gracious

Taking the edge off the truth about sin is precisely what Paul does not do in another part of that same letter, Ephesians 5:3-12. If, as discussed in a previous post, some parts of Ephesians 4 warm the hearts of the perpetually winsome, a passage in the very next chapter may well give them a heart attack. Most Christians simply do not have frames of reference for speaking how Paul speaks here. He says things which many today would say were "ungracious" or "judgemental" if we said them today, whether in print, in person, or online. Just imagine the reactions…

3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.