Avert your eyes now if you are sick of hearing about the Toad. Coming almost a year after I decided that some of his exploits should be broadcast it seems appropriate to mention his latest extraordinary move which was to send a print-out of part of this blog to some friends who had been quoted in it as judging him to be evil. No letter was enclosed but they are RC and the envelope was addressed to ‘The Roman Catholics,’ so the judgement on them was plain: they have failed as Christians by daring to judge Him.
It’s always a two-edged sword accusing another of being judgemental i.e. judging them to have been judgemental. ‘Judge not lest ye be judged’ is a useful quotation when someone has their back to the wall and the only defence they can rustle up for themselves is to try to shame the people who are seeing their poor behavior, ethics, morals, and values. Like bowling a googly it can be effective.
The phrase ‘love the sinner but not the sin’ is the the only workable way I’ve found of dealing with most darkness I’ve come across in my life, although it gets impossible when trying to relate it to child molesters and the Moors murderers. Not that the Toad can be compared to them of course.
Incidentally, with the help of the omnipotent Google god I found a hard-line ex-christian site on which ‘Love the sinner...’ was discredited as ‘fluffy thinking’ evangelism. It doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible but I supposed it to be there between the lines. Far from it.
“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” Luke 6:45
That’s pretty clear. According to Luke the man is to be judged fully responsible for his evil-doing.
“...but the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8
It is not the sin that is finally confined to the bowels of hell in God's loving plan, it is the people themselves. So there. If christians need to find permission to show discernment it's there in the book for them.
Anyway, all that is a bit of a deviation.
I’m happy to say that as I had always told my friends about the blog and its usefulness they have not disinvited me from their home. The print-out and the appearance in their tyre of a bright shiny nail remarkably like the ones they saw being being banged into bits of wood by the Toad have both been confirmations of everyone’s opinion of him.
Toad will never change. He sees no need to. It’s always those others who are in the wrong.
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