W. Clay Jackson, MD, DipTh

Social media back-and-forths on Christian Nationalism-related matters suffer from a seemingly insurmountable problem: participants routinely conflate words and opinions with actions and violence. But instead of issuing trigger warnings and demanding safe spaces, we cry "slander!", issue a Ninth Commandment proclamation against our foes, and self-righteously demand that the rest of the Internet enforce our verdict. It's a peculiar form of Christianized speech policing, where criticism, disagreement, rebuke, or even an uncharitable interpretation is elevated from something we dislike into a moral offense against God Himself. And once we've declared ourselves the victims of such an offense, we assume the authority to adjudicate the matter, pronounce judgment, and demand that everyone else recognize the guilt of the accused. Of course, genuine slander exists. Bearing false witness is sinful, and Christians are obligated to speak truthfully about their neighbors (Exodus 20:16; Ephesians 4:25). But criticism is not inherently slander, disagreement is not violence, and even poorly formed, unfair, or materially false speech is not automatically evidence of malicious intent. The moral evaluation of someone's words requires considerably more care than simply announcing that we have been wronged. The tell is when public Christian figures begin treating criticism of themselves as actual material harm—a kind of violence or violation of their rights—rather than speech to be answered, corrected, or, when appropriate, rebuked. This pious pre-adjudication does something rather convenient: it rhetorically transforms an opponent from someone who might be mistaken, unfair, or even genuinely sinful into a morally disqualified enemy. And once someone has been placed into that category, apparently all bets are off. The critic is no longer simply wrong. He's a liar, a slanderer, a wicked man, an enemy of righteousness. His arguments need not be represented accurately, his motives may be freely presumed, and his character can be reduced to whatever contemptuous category best serves the occasion. Caricature, ridicule, insinuation, and crass generalizations become permissible because, after all, look what kind of person we're dealing with! The initial accusation of slander thus becomes the mechanism by which we grant ourselves permission to slander. The designation of an enemy becomes the mechanism by which we excuse treating him in ways Christ expressly forbids. And this is where the whole exercise becomes especially absurd. The Ninth Commandment does not cease to apply to us because we believe someone else has violated it. Scripture condemns not merely lying, but malicious speech, false accusations, and the misuse of the tongue (James 3:5–10; Colossians 3:8–9). We are forbidden to repay evil for evil (Romans 12:17), commanded to avoid reviling in return when reviled (1 Peter 3:9), and explicitly instructed by Christ to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44). Notice that none of these commands contains an exception for opponents who have actually wronged us. Indeed, loving one's enemies would be a rather meaningless command if it applied only to people who had never treated us unjustly. Even a genuinely slanderous opponent is not thereby rendered "fair game" for our own sinful behavior. We may correct him, rebuke him, expose his falsehoods, and demand accountability where appropriate. But we may not abandon truthfulness, fairness, or Christian charity in doing so. The fact that someone has sinned against us does not confer upon us the right to sin against him. Ironically, the very people demanding painstakingly charitable interpretations of their own words will sometimes offer their opponents nothing of the sort. They insist upon precision when describing their own positions while indulging sweeping, dehumanizing categories when describing everyone else's. They demand that their motives be judged favorably while confidently assigning the worst possible motives to their critics. It's a remarkable asymmetry, particularly among Christians who profess to believe that God's moral law is universal, objective, and binding upon everyone. Somehow, we've convinced ourselves that thin skin is actually toughness, that indignation is discernment, and that responding to every criticism with the imprecatory finality of God Himself demonstrates spiritual courage. We condemn the therapeutic culture's obsession with emotional injury while adopting its central conceit: that being offended or wronged grants us special moral privileges in how we treat others. But it doesn't. The Christian response to injustice is not to manufacture a class of people toward whom justice is no longer required. Nor does Scripture permit us to replace Christ's command to love our neighbors with a friend/enemy distinction in which our friends receive every benefit of the doubt and our enemies receive none. "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). That command is not suspended when the evil is directed at us. Words are not violence simply because we'd like the emotional and rhetorical advantage of calling them that. Criticism is not slander merely because it stings. And even when genuine slander occurs, the person committing it does not forfeit his claim to truthful, just, and Christian treatment. If our defense of the Ninth Commandment requires us to violate it, perhaps we weren't defending the commandment in the first place.