On the Sin of Noticing Things
The Apostle Paul has an interesting line in his letter to Titus. It’s one that, perhaps, Christians today should give a little more attention. If for no other reason, there is a blessing in struggling with challenging texts, particularly those that would probably get their author anathematized in today’s evangelical church.
The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy…
One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons (Titus 1:12).
Ouch. What a bigot St. Paul was. The Cretans belonged to an island in the Mediterranean Sea, and their culture was seafaring. And, like today, sailors don’t always have the most civilized reputations. The rumor, or stereotype, is that they were a lot to handle. Whenever the Cretans came to port, stuff would get torn up. They were, largely, not to be trusted. Their reputation wasn’t stellar, to say the least.
But what does Paul mean, “even a prophet of their own said…?”
Perhaps this means Paul was simply quoting the line of a poem to make a point, not that he agreed with it. You know, kind of like a youth pastor quoting a line from Taylor Swift to connect with the pre-teen girls, but not necessarily because he endorses the lyrics.
This explanation might hold water, except that Paul follows it up in the next sentence, saying, “This witness is true.” Then, he tells Titus to act on this stereotype, saying, “Rebuke them sharply.”
It isn’t just a line from a poem; it’s a sentiment with which Paul agrees. Even further, Paul’s emphasis indicates the stereotype should affect how he looks at the Cretans and inform their response to the Cretans. Crazy, right? That’s downright anti-Cretan of him.
The poet Paul quotes is Epimenides, who penned that line about 700 years before Paul mentioned it. However, it appears to have been a pretty widely held stereotype because Epimenides wasn’t the only one who held it. Others, like Ovid, also referred to the Cretans as famous liars. Even the Greek slang word for “liars” (cretize) came from this stereotype of Cretans.
There’s no explaining this away. Titus was ministering to Cretans. Paul referenced a widely-held cultural stereotype of Cretans, called it correct, and told Titus to treat them accordingly. But how on earth can this be justified?
Well, it’s pretty simple. A stereotype does not presume that every member of an ethnic, religious, or cultural group demonstrates the characteristic largely assigned to the whole group. For example, if I said that “clowns are scary,” I’m not implying that this applies to Ronald McDonald. Or if I said that “hillbillies are rough around the edges,” I’m not implying that this is true of Vice President-elect JD Vance.
Although, let’s be honest, if you saw Ronald McDonald in a dark alley, you would probably be terrified, and there are some trailer parks that not even JD Vance would visit after dark. Why? Because stereotypes are often true, and everybody knows it.
But it seems, as of late, that any general characterization of certain people groups – no matter whether it’s religious or ethnic (cultural) – are forbidden for you to convey. In fact, you’re not allowed to notice. Of course, it’s impossible not to notice some things, but we are supposed pretend as though we don’t.
You do not notice who’s always trying to wear down a salesperson for a lower price. You do not notice who runs the pornography industry. You do not notice who’s taking home the ducks from the public park. You do not notice who’s busing migrants up from the Darien Gap. You might think you notice these things, but for the sake of your reputation in polite society, you do not.
That doesn’t apply to every religious or ethnic group, however, and rules governing who you can notice and who you can’t is complicated, to say the least.
For example, you’re 100% allowed to stereotype Americans as fat (ask any European). However, you’re not allowed to stereotype American tourists at Disney Land fat, despite there being actual maps for how to avoid the fat-scooters (and where to acquire them) at Disney Land. Perhaps, that stereotype is too specific. I’m not sure who makes the rules.
Or, for example, you’re allowed to characterize women who are busy bodies as being cat-ladies. You are not, however, permitted to point out that cat-ladies are mostly single women (or Democrats). JD Greear found this out too late, and people claimed this stereotype would lose Trump the election (hint: it did not, because everyone knew it was true).
At the risk of making this article too specific, and at the risk of being called an anti-semite, you’re not allowed to notice that most of the globalists who could pass for Dr. Evil in a movie casting, like George Soros, happen to have a shared cultural ancestry. In fact, noticing this has become so noticeable that the American Jewish Committee has labeled the term globalist as anti-semitic.
If you’re wondering, the all-knowing, never-wrong Wikipedia article on globalism also says it’s an anti-semitic trope. And when the Missouri Baptist Word and Way editor called me an antisemite in an article in their publication, I called and asked him why, considering I’ve never been accused of such before. His answer was that I was “a known critic of George Soros.” Despite me never having pointed out that Soros was Jewish, it didn’t seem to matter. This isn’t that far from what Joe Carter alleged at The Gospel Coalition a few years ago.
The rules also seem to be fluid. Douglas Wilson, for example, seems to have acknowledged that the porn industry is a Jewish cottage industry. But he recently seemed to suggest that this acknowledgment could not be uttered without committing some kind of internal thought-crime. In reality, the stereotype is true, with the Jewish monopoly on smut going back to the erotic book trade at the turn of the 20th Century, long before cinema (which is acknowledged by Jewish publications, like Jewish Quarterly). The owner of P0rnHub is a rabbi (according to The Jewish Independent), who will happily inform you that Talmudic Jews do often not hold the same sexual ethic as Christians (although some do).
Noticing that, for example, is forbidden for us.
There’s no doubt, however, that there are situations when conclusions from “noticing things” become sinful. These would include:
Concluding that the stereotype you notice is indicative of every individual within the group
Concluding that the stereotype you notice justifies mistreatment of that group
Concluding that the stereotype is innate within their genetic makeup, and not a result of other underlying historical, cultural, or socio-economic explanations
Concluding that the stereotype makes them unworthy of dignity and respect as image-bearers of God
Concluding that the stereotype is justification to make fun, ridicule, or insult individuals regardless of whether or not they personally share in that stereotype
Concluding that Jesus did not die for people who exhibit a stereotype, or that it is not worth preaching to them the Gospel
Concluding that the work of the Holy Spirit, through sanctification, cannot overcome any negative stereotype in an individual, or for that matter, in a people group
Those would all be committing the sin of partiality, or the favoring of one people group over another based on superficial characterizations (see James 2).
However, to claim that noticing things, or acknowledging the general accuracy of a stereotype, is somehow sinful is an altogether new classification of sin that is foreign to the Scripture. It’s also a sin of partiality in and of itself.
For example, suppose one can acknowledge that a white guy in a camouflage hat and a 4×4 pickup, like me, is probably a Trump voter. In that case, it surely isn’t wrong to acknowledge the hypothetical possibility that other stereotypes may likewise be generally accurate (whatever they may be). However, when certain people groups are off limits to noticing things about them, but not the white guy in a camouflage hat and a 4×4 pickup, you’re guilty of the sin of partiality. Yours is a two-tiered system of morality, making some groups off limits for noticing things but not others.
Ultimately, noticing is not a sin. Paul clearly noticed some things about the Cretans, and he wanted Titus to put that knowledge into practical use. And that practical use was preaching to them the Gospel and seeing them conformed to the image of Christ. So long as that is our goal, we can ignore people accusing us of the “sin” of noticing things.