Judging Motives/Discerning Hearts

I wasn't going to "go" here, because I don't find it to be an easy topic, a black and white topic, nor one that I can be brief about (clearly). And it's a topic that people gleefully are wont to leap in to argue the supposed black and whiteness of.
          We are told (in the book that tells us both to, and to not, answer a fool according to his folly) to judge not, lest you be judged, and to judge righteous judgement.  You can't really hold status or power or position without judging.  It's part of your job.  So you have to do it justly. Righteously.
        You have to exercise your best judgement.  Use discretion. 

Some will say "God judges the heart and motives. Human beings can't." But others will say that part of growing in the Spirit is growing in discernment, and spirituality means "tasting" the spirits of others who interact in our circles. That elders and assemblies by their very definition are supposed to deal with people's hearts and spirits and attitudes and not just their actions. Not just to judge, but to help. Even in a two or three-way dispute. They would say being spiritual means not being able to ignore the inner things of the heart that are going on in all of it and in all of us.

Clearly I believe the latter.

We never really know fully what's going on in people's hearts, yet paying attention and loving and growing in the Spirit seem to rob us of our carnal ability to just ignore stuff (good and bad) that's going on in terms of attitude, spirit, heart, motive, in everyone around us. It makes us see stuff. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Are we required not to comment upon that stuff? Like, ever? Because it's inside and we can't *know*?

Starting in a carnal, fleshly arena, let's look at human courts of law. Nothing spiritual there, surely. In order to convict someone of a crime, you don't just judge their actions. In order to judge them guilty of anything, you also have to establish that they had a motive.

Actus reus is the physical component of the person physically being capable, and evidence supporting the idea that they committed the act in question.

The second component is mens rea. The criminal mind. They have to have been shown by evidence to have had the motive, awareness and intent to do the act. In court, they go into what went on in the heart and mind of the killer, the rapist, the embezzler, the whatever.

Even in court, and in the realm of, say, insurance, the expression "in good faith" exists. This is about you being asked to comment upon what was going on inside you when you did something. Did you do it with a bad, malicious, fraudulent motive? You can be punished in human courts of law and insurance offices for doing things with a bad heart. Because people do stuff with a bad heart all the time. Even Christians. Even Christians who hold power over other Christians.

But we're being told, even if people are carrying on hurting others, that we are not to act upon what we discern their hearts to be. Not even if their actions seem to lay out a very clear motivation and characteristic agenda.

My Background On the Subject

And as is my wont, here's my own experience, which is all I have to draw on as to experience, and which motivates me to pay attention to things like these

(People who have pretty much never had experience of legalism, neo-Phariseeism and abuses of power in Christian circles should not, I would argue, take that lack of experience as something which qualifies them to therefore, dismiss the experiences of the myriad Christians who have, any more than someone who's never seen someone raped shouldn't probably take that as evidence that annual rape stats are incorrect):

I grew up with a number of Pharisees. Mostly they were who made sure they ran things. I was raised to be one. I was one. I still struggle not to act like one. The main thing that identifies a Pharisee is not just that, but what he judges. Pharisees judge how actions look. Jesus and the people in the bible judged motives. All the time. Reported them as facts, in fact. But we were only supposed to judge appearances.

And the thing is? We Pharisees whitewash our sepulchres carefully. We make sure the dirtiest-minded Christian person can't imagine we're doing anything untoward. And, what was always said in our circles was "the assembly judges a man's actions, and not [does not deal with] his heart."

You can well imagine how that all went down. We judged and judged and judged. And we judged appearances. We looked at actions (like wardrobe choices) and how they might be misconstrued. No one judged hearts. Whether or not a pure intent functioned as a defence depended on whether you had power or not. And whether you had power or not defended on How Things Looked. No wonder, given how we judged, that the Kingdom is "upside down" by comparison. Our "first"? Last in that Kingdom. And many of our lasts are first in it.

But we were upside down compared to the Kingdom. So bullies who took pains not to LOOK like bullies, or who had a pure motive to claim, for actions that might SEEM like bullying, got to bully all they wanted. Got more and more power. Made more and more decisions. So long as they did pious-seeming actions too.

Because the thing about saying you can't comment upon or respond to people's hearts? It means YOU HAVE TO TAKE EVERYTHING THEY SAY AND PRETEND AT FACE VALUE UNTIL YOU HAVE ACTION-BASED EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. And careful bullies don't provide that. Every bullying word in your ear is supposedly out of love. Even kicking you out for the rest of your life is out of love. Love for the Lord, Love for His people. To keep His Table clean.

Harmless as doves, only in theory. And only the bullies were getting away with being subtle as serpents, because we weren't allowed to comment on what were clearly personal vendettas, agendas, culls, purges and one-up-man-ship, all presented as "normal Christian stuff" and pious concern for the Things of the Lord and so on. Because the "not judging motives" thing only worked for the bullies. They judged our motives all the time. Or pretended to. If they'd actually been more clued in to our actual hearts and motives and motives, they'd have been better leaders.

But we regular folk are different. We're not supposed to speculate on why hurting people hurt others, and if they will continue to do so. We're supposed to blithely accept claimed motives and hearts to justify, but never to be warned about, or confront, the hearts and motives of people who seem to be doing something unhelpful.

This means, if someone with power has a dark, spiteful heart, so long as their claims are pious, we're told to not judge that heart, in our dealings with that person. We're told that if they say sorry a thousand times and keep right on hurting people, we're not only to (as the scripture tells us) forgive that person, but we are also to feel free to let them retain their position of power, and we're certainly not to warn or seek to protect others from that dark heart. And if we look to confront them or have a frank talk with them, we are sure to be told that we can't judge people's hearts.

And so people whom the dog, the cat, and everyone's five year old child steer clear of, because they're picking something dangerous up about that person's heart, those very people either get given more importance and responsibility than before, just because they want it (and they always seem to want it, don't they?) or are allowed to hold whatever power, oversight and status they already have.

The letter putting me out of fellowship clearly addresses my intentions, motives and attitude. So though I believe godly, discreet Christians do and should look upon what God looks upon, people's hearts, I also know how that can be misused. You can claim a person has bad motives, not because you see them, but because you need to "bump" them in terms of status.

And it doesn't work both ways, certainly not here on the Internet.  As soon as I comment on:

-the flimsiness of the reason for "putting me away" as a young adult and the similarly flimsy reasons for "putting away" so many others of all ages,
-the refusal of these guys to meet with me (or others) afterward after one token visit to more fully dismiss me (couched as "shepherding")
-and then I cite everything that has happened (and not happened) since 1998,

...though I address their actions, I get accused of possibly, maybe, potentially, kinda judging their motives. Their hearts.

I get told I'm doing something unscriptural for anyone but Jesus, prophets and apostles if I say that their actions seem to indicate that they got rid of thousands of us worldwide, quite on purpose, using any number of flimsy reasons, and they don't seem to want us back. It really does seem to be an abuse of power.

"But maybe," people say, "They think they're doing the right thing."
Hm. That defence did not work for Hitler.

Forgiveness

Whether or not I forgive them for it (I do) I feel tempted to maybe recognize "this" to be a real situation. I'm tempted to think, feel and act toward it in keeping with what my best discretion tells me it is, and I might even be unsurprised if they continue to act how they act. Since they kicked out me, they kicked out pretty much everyone I ever knew. I wasn't surprised. And I felt like their claims were suspect, given their actions, and I grew up knowing these people and feel like I have some insight into their modus operandi and motives alike. Their refusal to meet with us and discuss anything, being my main indication of this. But, I am told "You are wrong. You are judging their hearts."

I can forgive Bill Cosby, but if my sister announces she's going on a date with him, I might be concerned as to his motives.

Sometimes, when something walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and swims like a duck, it doesn't take any great spiritual discernment, nor even much judging of the heart to suggest that maybe, what you're looking at, is actually a duck. And you might be wrong. But this is life. You make your mind up on your best information, you try to understand things on as many levels as you can, and (and this is important) you are willing to adjust things afterward. You can decide someone has bad motives, even if you've forgiven them, but be careful in future, and be willing to hear more information, even from them.

But these people don't seem interested in vindicating themselves with more information. They really don't. They seem to wish there was less information out there, in fact.

I have forgiven them. The scope of my interest in the matter has broadened to legalism as an age-old fleshly battle we see everywhere. I'm not just interested in me and my assembly. I'm interested in the Brethren movement in all of its forms, and the Church as a whole, throughout history.

What's the appeal of legalism? Why does it seem to "win" in so many church circles, over more spiritual attitudes. Why isn't it taken terribly seriously, despite how Jesus and Paul spoke about it?

Being Spiritual Means Trying/Tasting Spirits

The letters to the seven churches, the epistles written in the New Testament, and certainly both the fruit of the Spirit and the matching list of works of the flesh, do not seem to limit themselves to physical actions. They do not shy away from comments on the inner things of the heart.

But what I'm repeatedly told is that forgiveness and spirituality mean taking everything that people say at face value, and never calling people to task for their claims and their actions not matching. I'm told we're not supposed to ponder the motives of those who are continuing to hurt us, but claim to be serving the Lord and feeding His sheep.

Because that's really the crux of it, isn't it? You get claims, and you get actions, and sometimes they really don't match. How can you even address that without running the risk of someone accusing you of "judging motives" or "the heart"?

We live in fear of being the Thought Police if we bring the mens rea into the discussion, right along with the actus rea; if we discuss what exactly it is that Pharisees are whitewashing (Sepulchres. Graves. " Oh, but they SAY that's a pretty white house. Who are we to question that?").

When the Pharisees were pretending to ask Jesus deeply spiritual questions, but were actually plotting to kill him, he was direct, and ignoring all of the questions, just cut to the chase and asked them directly "Why do you seek to kill me?"
Of course they said his judging of their hearts was crazy, but their actions in needing to leave the situation and cook up more plots, rather than being able to maintain the charade of interest in his teaching, was very revealing of their hearts, as was the fact that they paid Judas to betray him, got him arrested and insisted upon his execution.

But none of that had happened when they were asking what they presented as serious religious questions, in public. Didn't stop Jesus and his disciples from distrusting them, though.

Someone Else's Story

I usually use my own "situation," because I don't feel tempted to protect the privacy of the men in question the way I do with any number of other people's situations, but here's another one:

-a young woman who was a TW, came out to all the meetings, and was clearly someone who loved Jesus her whole upbringing. No one invited her to break bread. But one day, she "asked for her place at The Lord's Table," which place our group feels fully qualified and empowered to guard, protect, admit people to, and throw people out of. (That's not so much me judging their hearts as it is among their claims.)

-This young woman had a boyfriend she would soon marry. They were both virgins.

-This woman never got an answer as to "her place." As far as she can discern, it came down to people gossiping about her having slept in the same bed as her boyfriend once, so he could prove a big stupid point about TRUST to her. A point that he made by sleeping in her bed and not touching her. They were married a year later, still virgins.

-To this day, this woman has never been even told "no" as to "her place." She's just been left twisting in the wind, as it were. She asked. No one ever answered.

Now, is it off limits to say maybe they didn't really want her breaking bread very much? Weren't willing to talk and work with her? Isn't that judging their hearts?

The temptation is to argue about whether or not she and husband-to-be should have done what they did. No doubt people will want to take this discussion far off track by arguing about that. What I ask is:

-did she do anything that was sufficient for a group to feel they ought to deny her "her place" at the Lord's Table?-why not bother to meet with her in future or discuss the matter?-should people be denied "their place" at the Lord's Table for not having sex? Isn't this a Pharisee concern with how things look (sufficient whitewash?) over whether or not the bowl is clean inside, and whether or not they are living in a building that's full of rot and dead men's bones, though it's shiny and white outside? Isn't it just more following that badly translated KJV "the appearance of evil, avoid" which should read "avoid evil in all of its form"?

"Move On"

And I also don't understand how one "moves on from" one's family and friends and co-workers and customers, who get married, have birthdays and anniversaries, baby showers and funerals, and who confide in me as to both dubious wieldings of power by, and to them.

If someone gets screwed over in a religious system near me, I am very likely going to be contacted to weigh in. As some kind of "Getting Screwed Over By Christians" consultant, or expert witness on that subject. If someone in Alaska gets shamed at church for a hairstyle, I am not at all surprised when I get a PM that same day.

And I feel like I should help. I feel like I should be honest. I do draw upon my past. I don't feel like it's "dwelling on the past" to continue to deal in the present with the reality that the majority of the Christians in your community have either drifted away, failed to connect, or actually been driven out of the Christian group they either were born or born again into, or which they chose. I don't know what "moving on" means, apart from "don't think about/forget."

Forgiveness? Sure, Bill Cosby. But dealing with the (sometimes stripped or broken) nuts and bolts of what goes wrong in ecclesiastical circles around here and on the Internet is not, I do not feel, unforgiving, nor dwelling on the past.

Just because you don't like to hear about, and aren't encouraged by helping people who get shafted in church circles doesn't mean there isn't work to be done for and with and by them.

Things are real, in the real world outside what we like to pretend. Inside our whitewashed sepulchres. And sometimes, it's about hearts.