Living with Fallout from Speaking the Truth

“You’re Too Negative”
How many times have you heard that one?  I get it all the time.

So begins Bill Muehlenberg's post on bearing the brunt of reactions for telling the truth.  I have gotten the same, even from friends and family.  When you disagree with someone, a certain amount of tension occurs.  This is inevitable and good.  The proper response is to work through it.  Sadly, the mode du jour is to converse without expecting resolution—agreeing to disagree agreeably—and without making objective, transcendent truth claims.  Only opinions and knowledge based on life experience are used as verbal lubricant with the net effect that all parties maintain their views and part amicably.  I liken this to kissing my wife with a mask on.  Why bother?  Yet this has become the expectation in both secular and sacred culture.

The post ends with this:

I think Spurgeon had it right when he said, “This shall be an infallible test to you concerning anyone’s ministry.  If it is man-praising, and man-honouring, it is not of God.”  If that means we will be seen as negative and harsh to some people, well, tough beans.

Amen.