I was watching Bill O’Reilly the other day, and I found myself shouting at the TV as he cut off one of his guests who was explaining that “Christianity wasn’t a Salad Bar where you could pick and choose what you wanted.” Bill went on in his usual condescending manner to lecture her about being judgmental.

I had to think about it for some time, wondering if maybe he could be right. After all, didn’t Jesus teach us to “let he who is without sin cast the first stone?”

In thinking about this, however, I have to wonder if there is an equal danger in interpreting the Bible too figuratively, as there is in being too literal. I don’t think that Jesus was saying that we should not judge anybody about anything. By that logic, we would find ourselves unable to judge people for even the most evil and outrageous offenses, such as incest or pedophilia – certainly something that Mr. O’Reilly himself has gone to great pains to judge.

I think rather, Jesus was teaching us that we should be temperate in our judgments, knowing that we ourselves will ultimately be judged when it is our time.

Based on this, however, aren’t we back to square one in that we should tend to our own faith and not judge that of another.

I was pondering this in Church this past weekend, and I think that I found my answer in one of the lessons for the day. It was a reading that is probably one of the most commonly known lessons in the Bible, because of its almost obligatory inclusion in any wedding ceremony.

In First Corinthians 13, we read, “If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a tinkling symbol. And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I dole out all my goods, and if I deliver my body that I may boast but have not love, nothing I am profited.”

Many of you may be wondering where I could possibly be going with this. For those of you, however, who have children, you probably already know.

There was a time, when our first son was very young that I fell into a logical trap of the type that Mr. O’Reilly would expound. I felt that if I chastened my child for his bad behavior, I was not being a good parent. After all, weren’t we all taught that it is wrong to discipline children but that rather if you are only their friends, then they will grow up to be just fine.

This simply doesn’t work.

It may seem contradictory, but if you truly love your children, your judgment will seem harsh. You will correct them when they are wrong and you will punish them when they are not behaving properly, but you will do it with love. If you do not, they will know no discipline and you will merely leave them to the mercy of others who will never love them as much as you do; be it their friends, co-workers, or in the worst case, the Penal System.

As Christians, much like Parents, we cannot help but judge others because we love them and we want them to be saved. We don’t judge others instead of judging ourselves, but rather, we do both. Children don’t like it when their Parents judge or discipline them, but ultimately, they know that their Parents love them. Alternately, as adults, we are much more reluctant to believe that people who are critiquing us are doing it out of love; especially when they happen to be across the proverbial political divide.

This is the ultimate irony in that, for example, when many people listen to someone like Ann Coulter, their first inclination is to think that she is a hateful person, not just because of what she says, but also because of how she says it, rather than realizing that if, as she says, she is first and foremost a Christian, then all the things that she says and how she tries to change people’s minds is a reflection of her Christian Love, rather than a contradiction of it.

Go figure.