Ex. 3: When is Criticism “Throwing Someone Under the Bus”?

When it's not our criticism

Photo by Katrin Hauf on Unsplash

In my last article I explored the way the culture war as a Social Myth could explain criticisms of Christians who write for secular publications. One part of that criticism is the claim that these writers throw other Christians under the bus in order to gain credibility with their secular, progressive audiences. Another way to put this is that any critique of the Church is viewed as treason.

There are cases where this accusation is valid, where the disdain and disgust with fellow Christians is so strong and irrational, it’s not even clear why the writer continues to identify as a Christian. In these cases their criticism of Christians goes beyond iron sharpening iron. It’s flesh tearing. It’s a bloody sacrifice to the culture war. But I think that more often this accusation is used in a partisan way, driven by culture war expectations of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable criticism.

In every social group, there are acceptable and unacceptable criticisms. When a writer criticizes their own group with an unacceptable criticism, they are viewed as a traitor, regardless of the validity of the criticism.