DeYoung, Driscoll, and Dealing with Criticism

1 Peter is a book we’re covering in Explore later this year, and so it’s been much in my mind recently. And it strikes me that it’s written to Christians in a culture very similar to the UK in 2012—and perhaps one the US is increasingly moving towards, too.

It’s a book written to a church who were a tiny minority in a sea of other religions. Who faced not only apathy but outright hostility to the way they lived their lives. Who faced sustained, trenchant and unfair criticism for being Christ’s followers.

And right in the middle of this wonderful book comes one of the more “famous” bits:

“In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (1 Peter 3 v 15-16).

We often look at just the first two sentences, which are a great encouragement to live for Christ and then answering people who are intrigued by our life.

But that doesn’t really seem to be what Peter’s talking about. He’s talking about people speaking maliciously against our behaving as our King commands. About people who see someone living as a Christian, and have a go at them for it, asking how on earth they would think it a good idea to follow Jesus, how on earth they can hold the beliefs that they do.

These verses are about how to deal Christianly with criticism of our life, our beliefs, our Lord. And Peter says if we let Christ, rather than ourselves, be Lord in our hearts, we’ll respond in two ways:

• we won’t be silent. We’ll explain our reasons for living as we do and thinking what we do.
• we won’t fight back. Even if we think the criticism is malicious, the only things they’ll get from us are gentleness and respect.

Christianity is not about keeping quiet when criticised. But equally, it’s not about biting back, either. We’re not trying to win an argument and look good—we’re trying to win people to considering Christ, so that He might look good.

And if that’s the standard for how we deal with aggressive criticism from outsiders, then presumably that’s also the minimum standard for when Christians call each other to account (whether it seems unfair or not).

And it just seems that this week, 1 Peter 3 v 15-16 might be particularly relevant. The Christian internet world and twittersphere has been more than usually full of criticism, and responses to criticism, from high-profile Christians, and it’s really helpful to have 1 Peter 3 v 15-16 to help us think both about the manner of the criticism, and the way it’s been dealt with.

You can see the exchanges here:

• Between Kevin deyoung, a pastor in Michigan, and Jefferson Bethke, who released a viral youtube video called “Why I hate religion, but love Jesus". Kevin critiqued the video’s content, and then blogged on the response he’d had from Jefferson about Kevin's criticism.
• Between a journalist from UK-based Christianity Magazine and Mark Driscoll, a pastor in Seattle, about a new book he’s co-authored, and his wider ministry. You can listen to extracts of the article here, and see Mark’s response to what he felt was a critical article here. For some secular response to the book itself, see CNN's website, and again for response to criticism, see paragraph 11.