Judge Not

  Judge not, that ye be not judged. ~ Jesus

Boy, if there has been one verse in the New Testament that people have learned it is Matthew 7:1. It was part of "The Sermon on The Mount", you may have heard about it. It has been in all of the papers.

Jesus is being, as we say, straight up. This is a direct command. Do Not Judge.

In Matthew 7: 2-3, Jesus goes on to say that how you judge is how you will be judged and you shouldn't be a hypocrite.

However.

It is tough not to judge people. It is almost as hard as not looking at a woman and lusting in your heart. That snared Jimmy Carter, so you know it is tough.

The problem comes in what is actual judgment. It really depends on your viewpoint.  If someone is criticizing you or something you like, they are are judging you and are on the wrong side of Jesus. However, if you are criticizing something or someone, you are simply rendering an opinion.

This recently came up during the startling revelation that Vice President Mike "Mike" Pence and his wife, Mrs. Mike Pence, do not have lunch or dinner with a member of the opposite gender, regardless of party affiliation, by themselves.

It is known in the Evangelical world as "The Billy Graham Rule". Billy Graham would never meet with a woman alone. Tongues wag, you know.

It is a pretty good rule for members of the clergy. It prevents misunderstanding, gossip, and a whole host of other issues.

The layman, well, it is probably a good idea, but it is not always possible.

For example, for years, I would eat lunch with various women I worked with and somehow we managed not to fool around in the breakroom.  I have also had lunch with female friends and everything was up and up. I told my wife where I was and at what time I was there. Plus, my wife has that app on her phone that tells her where I'm at all times.

My opinion: I think it is okay for a man and woman to have lunch together as long as they don't have sex for dessert.  My wife trusts me and I trust my wife.  Anyway, our lunch schedules now preclude us from having lunch with anybody, so this is a non-issue for us.

Even though I disagree with the Vice President, I understand the logic and it is really none of my business. If it works for them, it works for me.

However, Olga Khazan wrote in The Atlantic magazine that "women"(i.e. the staffers, etc in Washington)  "suffer" (i.e.: don't become famous) because of Pence's "Dudely Dinners".

She writes, "Pence is not the only powerful man in Washington who goes to great lengths to avoid the appearance of impropriety with the opposite sex. An anonymous survey of female Capitol Hill staffers conducted by National Journal in 2015 found that “several female aides reported that they have been barred from staffing their male bosses at evening events, driving alone with their congressman or senator, or even sitting down one-on-one in his office for fear that others would get the wrong impression.” One told the reporter Sarah Mimms that in 12 years working for her previous boss, he 'never took a closed door meeting with me. ... This made sensitive and strategic discussions extremely difficult.'"
 

Khazan correctly points out that if somebody is going to cheat, they're going to cheat.  If there's one thing Bill Clinton taught us was that. But, it is not too out of the realm of possibility that someone catching dinner every night with someone else might be slipping around.  However, you won't know until you know.

It is a topic we have to give each other some slack. If we shouldn't judge Bill and Hillary Clinton's marriage, which George Stephanopoulous said was "a mystery", we really shouldn't judge the Pence's marriage either.