I’d just finished reading certainly one of C. S. Lewis’s lesser-known books, Studies in Words, once I happened upon a recent New York Times report on evangelical support for Donald Trump. The former president’s summer of legal woes is off to an early start, and lots of have asked whether the current trial (or one other) will lose him support ahead of Election Day. The answer—amongst his base, anyway—is undoubtedly no.
If anything, the other is true: In some circles, his adversities are hailed as a sort of vindication, his endurance on the campaign trail as an indication of divine blessing. “For a few of Mr. Trump’s supporters, the political attacks and legal peril he faces are nothing wanting biblical,” the report said. “They’ve crucified him worse than Jesus,” one Trump enthusiast told the Times.
Now, the Lewis book is generally fascinating linguistic history, however the last chapter examines how we use language to dispense criticism, and its final two pages are precisely the warning our political culture needs as we plod through one other contentious election. It’s actually the warning I need and the warning I hope fellow Christians will heed, particularly those of us in politically diverse families, friend groups, and congregations.
I noticed how much I needed it as I read that Times article. It published on Easter Monday and I read it the identical day, the drama of Easter weekend fresh on my mind. Suffice it to say, the crucifixion line didn’t sit well with me.
“Worse than Jesus”! I remember considering. I agree a few of this legal stuff is far-fetched, but are you kidding me? Do these people not know what crucifixion entails? Do they not know Trump probably sleeps on silk sheets? Has actual diamonds on his front door? We’re not exactly coping with a “man of sorrows” here (Isa. 53:3, KJV).
I could have kept going. Some a part of me wanted to maintain going, to tear that line to shreds, to choose apart the poor theology and misplaced political loyalty, to make it the main target of this very article, to personally and publicly sort the sheep from the goats. I had the impulse to self-aggrandizing political judgment I’ve observed in others, and I used to be dismayed to search out it tasted delicious in my very own mouth.
But recalling what Lewis said about criticism made me spit it out. He was writing greater than six a long time ago, so his idea of a public critic is now anachronistically narrow. He envisions a book reviewer, or a scholar assessing some latest research—essentially, people like Lewis himself.
Today, after all, we are able to all play the critic, and we don’t need to restrict our critical attention to books or journals. Old norms against talking politics in lots of social and skilled contexts have fallen away. And the web as we comprehend it invites us all to render judgment on absolutely anything we like, sometimes in the shape of condemnation (“X is bad and silly”) and sometimes as affirmation (“I support Y, the nice and smart thing”). We often describe this as “taking a stand.”
Taking a stand could be the best and even needed thing to do. Yet our motives are sometimes less pure than we imagine, and that is where the warning is available in. “I feel we must get it firmly fixed in our minds,” Lewis wrote, “that the very occasions on which we should always most like to write down a slashing review”—or post a devastating TikTok or tweet or message within the family chat—“are precisely those on which we had significantly better hold our tongues. The very desire is a danger signal.”
Lewis was not against condemnation. He wasn’t advocating cowardice. Sometimes, he said, we must “condemn totally and severely.” But we should always listen to why we wish to talk this manner, why we wish to pronounce “a completely indulged resentment.” If we discover ourselves rushing to critique some person or group for doing “‘precisely the kind of thing we at all times detest,’ then,” Lewis wrote, “if we’re clever, we will be silent”:
The strength of our dislike is itself a probable symptom that each one isn’t well inside; that some raw place in our psychology has been touched, or else that some personal or partisan motive is secretly at work. If we were simply exercising judgement we should always be calmer; less anxious to talk.
And if we do speak, we will almost actually make fools of ourselves. Continence on this matter is little question painful. But, in spite of everything, you’ll be able to at all times write your slashing review now and drop it into the wastepaper basket a day or so later. A couple of re-readings in cold blood will often make this quite easy.
I realize this recommendation may feel as outdated as Lewis’s picture of writing a review on physical paper and placing it within the physical trash. From right and left alike, our political life reverberates with calls to urgency and outrage: If you aren’t able to take radical political motion, you “don’t know what time it’s.” If you stay out of politics—even when that amounts to so small a insurrection as declining to follow every news cycle—you need to be having fun with the luxury of privilege.
It’s not true that disinterest in politics is an indication of privilege; quite the opposite, more educated (and due to this fact higher income) Americans are more politically engaged than their less privileged counterparts by nearly every measure. But it’s true that there are a lot of outrageous and urgent matters in American politics. I’m plenty discontented with the entire state of things myself.
And politics is hardly the one place we’ve essential and difficult disagreements. (I often say I’m more apprehensive about causing a stir in Christian circles on X, formerly Twitter, than in its political spaces; the intra-church fights could be more vicious.)
In many contexts, Lewis’s call to forbearance won’t ever be obsolete. It echoes the spirit of Paul’s advice to Timothy to avoid “silly and silly arguments, because you understand they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but should be kind to everyone, in a position to teach, not resentful” (2 Tim. 2:23–24).
The high stakes we encounter in politics and beyond are exactly why Lewis’s advice to take a pause before (and even as a substitute of) taking a stand is so needful: We wouldn’t need the warning if we were all in agreement.
Thanks to the grotesque distension of the American election cycle, we’re 18 months into this thing and still have 6 months to go. It will worsen before it gets higher. The impulse to take stands—confident stands, bombastic stands, stands that bring discord into our close relationships and have zero effect on national politics—will only grow stronger. By November, we’ll be awash in diatribes and bereft of discernment, if we don’t take care.
Bonnie Kristian is the editorial director of ideas and books at Christianity Today.
