On Cor­rec­tion and Children

Excerpt from The Divine Conspiracy

Judge Not

If we would real­ly help those close to us and dear, and if we would learn to live togeth­er with our fam­i­ly and ​“neigh­bors” in the pow­er of the king­dom, we must aban­don the deeply root­ed human prac­tice of con­demn­ing and blam­ing. This is what Jesus means when he says, ​“Judge not.” He is telling us that we should, and that we can, become the kind of per­son who does not con­demn or blame oth­ers. As we do so, the pow­er of God’s king­dom will be more freely avail­able to bless and guide those around us into his ways. 

But when we first hear this we may feel as we did when we heard about lay­ing aside anger, con­tempt, and cul­ti­vat­ed lust­ing — dis­be­liev­ing. Can we real­ly live that way? Could we suc­cess­ful­ly nego­ti­ate per­son­al rela­tions with­out let­ting peo­ple know that we dis­ap­prove of them and find them to be in the wrong? Con­dem­na­tion — giv­ing it and receiv­ing it — is such a large part of ​“nor­mal” human exis­tence that we may not even be able to imag­ine or think what life would be like with­out it. 

At least we need the choice of giv­ing oth­ers a good dose of blame and con­dem­na­tion when it seems appro­pri­ate, don’t we? We have great con­fi­dence in the pow­er of con­dem­na­tion to ​“straight­en oth­ers out.” And if that fails, should we not at least make clear that we are on the side of the right — no small mat­ter itself? 

But what is it, exact­ly, that we do when we con­demn some­one? When we con­demn anoth­er we real­ly com­mu­ni­cate that he or she is, in some deep and just pos­si­bly irre­deemable way, bad — bad as a whole, and to be reject­ed. In our eyes the con­demned is among the dis­cards of human life. He or she is not accept­able. We sen­tence that per­son to exclu­sion. Sure­ly we can learn to live well and hap­pi­ly with­out doing that. 

Who Can ​“Cor­rect” Others 

To be fair, we rarely intend such total rejec­tion, but that is usu­al­ly what comes across. To cor­rect anoth­er with­out mak­ing this hap­pen requires great spir­i­tu­al and per­son­al matu­ri­ty. That is why Paul wrote to the Gala­tians, ​“Broth­ers, if some­one real­ly is caught in a sin, the spir­i­tu­al ones among you are the ones to restore him. Do it in a low­ly and non-pre­sump­tu­ous spir­it, con­sid­er­ing your­selves, lest you too be put to the test. Feel the weight oth­ers are feel­ing, and thus you will ful­fill Christ’s teach­ing” (6:1).

The wis­dom that comes from Jesus to us through these words of Paul is aston­ish­ing­ly rich. First, we don’t under­take to cor­rect unless we are absolute­ly sure of the sin. Here the lan­guage of 1 Corinthi­ans 13 comes into play: love ​“believes all things, hopes all things.” If there is any lack of clar­i­ty about whether the sin occurred, assume it did not. At least, don’t start correcting. 

Sec­ond, not just any­one is to cor­rect oth­ers. Cor­rec­tion is reserved for those who live and work in a divine pow­er not their own. For that pow­er is also wise, and it is lov­ing beyond any­thing we will ever be. These are ​“the spir­i­tu­al ones” referred to. Only a cer­tain kind of life puts us in posi­tion to ​“cor­rect.”

Third, the ​“cor­rect­ing” to be done is not a mat­ter of ​“straight­en­ing them out.” It is not a mat­ter of ham­mer­ing on their wrong­ness and on what is going to hap­pen to them if they don’t change their ways. It is a mat­ter of restora­tion. The aim in deal­ing with the one ​“caught” is to bring them back on the path of Jesus and to estab­lish them there so their progress in king­dom char­ac­ter and liv­ing can con­tin­ue. Noth­ing is to be done that is not use­ful to this spe­cif­ic end. 

Fourth, the ones who are restor­ing oth­ers must go about their work with the sure knowl­edge that they could very well do the same thing that the per­son ​“caught” has done, or even worse. This total­ly removes any sense of self-right­eous­ness or supe­ri­or­i­ty, which, if it is present, will cer­tain­ly make restora­tion impos­si­ble. To aid in this direc­tion, the restor­ers are to endeav­or to feel the weight, the ​“bur­den,” that the one being restored feels as he or she stands trapped in the sin. 

Of course these teach­ings were nev­er intend­ed to apply only to church fel­low­ships and com­mu­ni­ty. They are most impor­tant for human life as they apply to our clos­est rela­tion­ships, to our mates and chil­dren, our close rel­a­tives and asso­ciates of all types. This is the place where, in our twist­ed and upside down con­di­tion, famil­iar­i­ty is most like­ly to breed con­tempt. Most fam­i­lies would be health­i­er and hap­pi­er if their mem­bers treat­ed one anoth­er with the respect they would give to a per­fect stranger. 

C. S. Lewis’s dis­cus­sion of storge, famil­ial love, is end­less­ly instruc­tive on this point and is required read­ing for all who intend to have a decent fam­i­ly life. He notes that he has ​“been far more impressed by the bad man­ners of par­ents to chil­dren than by those of chil­dren to parent.” 

Par­ents are seen to treat their chil­dren with ​“an inci­vil­i­ty which, offered to any oth­er young peo­ple, would sim­ply have ter­mi­nat­ed the acquain­tance.” They are dog­mat­ic on mat­ters the chil­dren under­stand and the elders don’t, they impose ruth­less inter­rup­tions, flat con­tra­dic­tions, ridicule of things the young take seri­ous­ly, and make insult­ing ref­er­ences to their friends. This pro­vides an easy expla­na­tion to the ques­tions, ​“Why are they always out? Why do they like every house bet­ter than their home?” ​“Who,” Lewis inquires, ​“does not pre­fer civil­i­ty to barbarism?” 

Saint Dominic, who lived in the thir­teenth cen­tu­ry and found­ed the great Domini­can Order of Preach­ers with­in the Catholic Church, beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trates the ten­der way of Jesus. His broth­er Paul of Venice, among oth­ers, bore tes­ti­mo­ny to it by relat­ing, ​“He [Dominic] want­ed the Rule [of the Domini­can Order] to be observed strict­ly by him­self and by the oth­ers. He rep­ri­mand­ed offend­ers just­ly and so affec­tion­ate­ly that no one was ever upset by his cor­rec­tion and punishment.” 

Broth­er Fruge­rio also said of Dominic, ​“He him­self observed the Rule strict­ly and want­ed it to be observed by the oth­ers. He con­vict­ed and cor­rect­ed offend­ers with gen­tle­ness and kind­ness in such a way that no one was upset, even though the penances were some­times very severe.” This is the nat­ur­al effect of a non­con­demn­ing spirit.