David Powlison (a Kailua boy!) is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Here’s his view of criticism:
Critics are God’s instruments. I don’t like to be criticized. You don’t like to be criticized. Nobody likes to be criticized. But, critics keep us sane – or, by our reactions, prove us temporarily or permanently insane.
Whether a critic’s manner is gracious or malicious, whether the timing is good or bad, whether the intention is constructive or destructive, whether the content is accurate, half-true, or utterly false, in any case the very experience of being criticized reveals you. To what madnesses are you prone?
He suggests several common “madnesses” that are revealed in us by criticism:
- Self-satisfaction
- Self-justification
- Self-protection (of the have-an-easy-life variety)
- Self-protection (of the be-liked-by-others variety)
He says we can gain a proper perspective on criticism by putting a new spin on the old phrase “Let’s agree to disagree”:
Most often, people use this as a polite way to end the conversation, “Good-bye, and don’t bother me. We’re not going to talk about this anymore, but we’ll try to be nice if we happen to see each other again. You’re not going to change my mind, and I’m not going to change yours, so let’s forget it. Let’s just agree to disagree.”
Such an attitude has nothing to do with Jesus’ purposes in our midst. How about giving it the opposite meaning? Let’s agree…to disagree. Let’s commit to starting candid, constructive conversations, and let’s keep them going. I need your questions and criticisms, and you need mine.
It’s worth reading at least the first half of the article (the second half focuses on a specific area of criticism Powlison has dealt with).
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