Every Careless Word

The 9th Commandment, Summit, Some R&R

Dear Friends,

Welcome to another edition of The Quarter Inch, a brief mid-week commentary on current events.

I thought it was something of a “slow news” summer, but then I have really come to realize that the days of getting my breaking news and things of interest from “X” (formerly called “Twitter”) are over. When Elon Musk took over the platform I saw so many people decrying (or praising) how much things had “changed,” but I frankly couldn’t spot any real changes. It remained a digital public commons filled with banality and morons. But I could still follow some good people and get good links to essays and articles, as well as good commentary on, well, breaking news.

Well, Musk has essentially throttled people from linking those good articles, and I see less and less useful information on current events. All I see is the endless repetition of the same old stale political and theological debates and mud-slinging, engaged in by the same set of people who have nothing better to do with their lives but be outraged all the time.

I think it is time to just quit it for good.

So in the meantime, my go-to places for news are three: National Review sends out “Breaking News” reports to my inbox regularly, and they are pretty good as separating out the wheat from the chaff. The Morning Dispatch really is an indispensable resource; their “range” of topics every day is impressive, as is their fairness to all sides. And last by certainly not least, Erick Erickson’s “Show Notes” Substack is utterly invaluable. Every afternoon he sends a “Four Things You Need to Know This Afternoon,” and that alone will keep you apprised of important current events. And it helps that Erick is as straight a shooter as you can hope for; beholden to nobody—no party, no tribe—and not enslaved by the craving for clicks and dollars. He just tells it like he sees it.

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Yesterday I sent out a Square Inch Newsletter about the conflagration between Douglas Wilson and Russell Moore at Christianity Today. Later in the day, David Bahnsen penned his own take, and I highly commend it to you.

I feel the need to add this: Douglas Wilson has been a provocative lightning rod in the public square for a long time (by his design, of course), and therefore he has been the object of much opposition. Some need to know that a lot of it is slander, and need to keep this in mind: the 9th commandment does not just mean, “Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.” It also, by implication, condemns an eagerness to believe a bad report about your neighbor. See again the lengthy, sobering quote from C.S. Lewis I posted yesterday.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been reading Wilson’s output for over thirty years. I know slander about what he thinks and believes when I see it. And I see it, a lot. I would suspect that over that thirty years Doug has written millions of words (it might tens of millions; that’s just my rough guesstimate). And here’s my breakdown: a lot of it is really good. Some of it wrong-headed and bad. Some of it is in poor taste. Some of it is sinful ridicule and sinful language. Some of it is beautiful.

Who would’ve thought? The author is … a human being with a long career!

It is the easiest thing in the world to just digitally search someone’s millions of words and compile the most damning dossier imaginable. The product will be a caricature pretty much every time. And be reminded that you and I will be subjected to the exact same standard … one day. And it won’t be a caricature. The Lord will judge “every careless word” (Matt. 12:36). Kyrie eleison.

There is no need to compile a caricature; no need to invent things; no need to impute evil or nefarious motives. Wilson’s ministry and project has plenty of things that are fair game to criticize (which I demonstrably do from time to time), and plenty to commend. Burning down a straw man might rally an excitable tribe, but it falls far, far short of our Christian duty to the truth and the good name and reputation of our neighbor. Yes, even that neighbor.

I feel the exact same way about the online trolls who habitually believe and propagate the absolute worst about Russell Moore and his ministry and institutions. This is a very, very equal-opportunity sin.