Beer: Interesting. A few hours ago I sent a friend from work a casual photo from home, and he happened to notice a little refrigerator off to the side. He says, “Really off topic, is that your beer fridge on the left?” My reply: “Why do you assume there is beer in it? There is, but I’m just saying.” His response was almost immediate: “I wasn’t judging, don’t worry, I just never noticed it in any of the other pictures you have sent me.”
Now, there was absolutely nothing wrong with what he said. He wasn’t judging me, and I knew he wasn’t. In fact, that is precisely what made those few words so interesting to me: “I wasn’t judging.” I hadn’t accused him of judging me. Why, then, does judgment enter the conversation at all?
I suspect that little sentence tells us something about the religious atmosphere many of us have breathed for a very long time. Among believers, alcohol has often occupied that strange territory where nearly everyone knows that Scripture does not forbid it, and yet it can still become a marker of spirituality, worldliness, wisdom, liberty, stumbling, and almost everything else. And alcohol is only an easy illustration. The same thing can happen with clothing, music, entertainment, where we go, what we own, and countless other ordinary decisions of life.
Before long, perfectly legitimate choices begin carrying far more theological weight than Scripture ever gave them. Instead of simply asking whether something is sinful, wise, loving, or appropriate under the circumstances, we begin reading these things as evidence of somebody’s spiritual condition or progress in the Christian life. That is what interests me.
Of course, the answer is not that nothing matters. Drunkenness matters. Self-control matters. Loving our neighbor matters. How we live matters. The Christian life matters. But those things are very different from creating an atmosphere in which merely having beer in a refrigerator can feel like something that might require the assurance, “Don’t worry, I wasn’t judging.”
Perhaps we have spent so much time measuring the Christian life through outward indicators that even when nobody is actually judging anybody, we all understand instinctively that the possibility is somewhere in the room. And maybe that is worth thinking about. Even if it did take a beer refrigerator to get us there. MPJ