Politics of Contempt

To have contempt for someone is to think that person is worthless. Contempt comes out of anger. We don’t like what people believe or say, and so we may have contempt for them.

Christians are called not to be people of contempt but people of God’s love and righteousness. Yes, we are to stand for the truth in love and speak the truth in love. “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). There is a huge difference between addressing an issue and attacking the person. As well, this is a basic interpersonal issue of good communication and person relations. When we attack someone, categorize them to discount them, call them names, or attack their identity, then we are communicating and acting with contempt. This is way too common today.

People think that if they have contempt for others and slander others, this will change things. They believe that just by pointing out the wrong in others, they will change to accept our view. It is okay to show a better way, especially in truth, but the salvation of the world will not be wrought by politics. The world will be changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and living it. We are saved by connecting with God in salvation.

It is good at times to deal with an issue or suggest a better way. There are a lot of critics that leave out suggesting a better way. Hopefully, it is not Neo-Marxism or other philosophies with little or no moral base or not logically based, not to mention common sense.

Contempt is judging the person as of no value. It is not just finding fault with what is said and the policies proposed, but it is attacking the person and being contemptuous. The Bible in 1 Corinthians gives us the beautiful definition of love and a searching magnifier of the human heart, saying love is not “arrogant or rude”, “irritable or resentful,” “Love does not insist on its own way.”

People, when they don’t have a good logical defence, start attacking the other person. They call them names or belittle them in some way, or put them in a category they can easily discard. This is contempt.

People treated Jesus with contempt and nailed him to a cross. (Mark 9:12; Luke 23:11) Jesus said of the self-righteous Pharisees of his day, “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (Luke 18:9). The self-righteous do not know the way of grace in salvation or remember it in how they live their lives. Contempt can also show up on our countenance and our faces.

Many disciples of Jesus have given up on evangelism because of people’s contempt for the gospel. Often, it is also due to them not knowing the gospel well enough to share with others and not learning by practice. Where there is a will, there is a way. It is okay for God in Jesus Christ to face contempt, but they don’t want to, so they sometimes switch to politics and spew out their own contempt, along with the world.

We are to put away contemptuous thinking and replace it with Godly thinking. If you feed your mind with Biblical Godly thinking and are experiencing God in prayer, your thinking, feeling and desires will be refreshed in God. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:5-11).

Christians are not a contemptuous people, as God has instructed in Jesus and in the Bible, God’s Word. We are people of God’s love and the gospel declared and lived.

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24-26).