A curious aspect of human nature spans across cultures, religions, and philosophies: the irresistible urge to judge. Judgement, some would say, is our modern-day sacrament, a rite we practice daily with religious zeal. Whether cloaked in the guise of moral superiority or subtle insinuations, we find ourselves sitting comfortably on the thrones of our inner courtrooms, passing verdicts on the souls of others without ever stepping into their shoes, let alone their hearts.
Take, for instance, the drunkard who stumbles into the pews every Sunday, eyes red from either last night’s revelry or the sorrow that drowns him from within. To the purists of faith, he is a fallen soul, irredeemable, condemned to live outside the holy gates. His hands, instead of clasped in prayer, are assumed to be perpetually around a bottle. And yet, what these judges of the soul fail to consider is the quiet church that exists within the hearts of such men. The drunkard, they do not know, has his own nightly ritual, his own whispered prayers to a God he feels too ashamed to speak to in public. His confessions poured out with a heart too broken to be understood by a judgmental crowd, fall silently upon the ears of a God who sees all.
Then there are the lovers, those who walk the path of relationships, fleeting or otherwise, in search of something intangible, something tangible that escapes their grasp time and time again. To the righteous, they are the fornicators, the lost souls, the ones too blinded by desire ever to reach heaven. They are judged not by the depth of their love or the purity of their search for connection but by the surface-level appearance of sin. The judging crowd misses that love itself is a church that can either lift or break a person’s spirit. Even the most ardent lovers, those who lose themselves in the arms of another, quietly seek the divine in ways that cannot be explained in scripture but are written in the aching of the human heart.
The tragedy of all this judging, however, lies not only in its misapplication but in its blindness. For in casting others into darkness, the self-righteous fail to recognise the shadows they carry. Those who pray loudly in the front rows of the congregation, who wear their righteousness like a badge of honour, are just as likely to be wandering in their spiritual wilderness. Their outward display of faith may very well be a façade, a desperate attempt to mask the inner doubts that gnaw at them during the midnight hours. If we are honest, the spiritual life is far more complicated than the simple labels we affix to others. To varying degrees, we are all sinners and saints, walking a tightrope between divine grace and human frailty. To judge another based solely on their outward actions, whether inebriated by alcohol or love, is to miss the entire point of spirituality. For true spirituality lies not in the appearance of righteousness but in the quiet, internal work of reconciliation; a process as intimate as it is invisible.
This brings us to an often-overlooked truth, one that both psychology and philosophy have long hinted at: humans are complex, multi-layered beings, capable of holding both light and darkness within themselves simultaneously. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist, spoke of the ‘shadow,’ the parts of ourselves we refuse to acknowledge, often projecting onto others in the form of judgment. In judging the drunkard or the lover, we may very well be judging the parts of ourselves we fear to confront: our weaknesses, unmet desires, and private sins. After all, the drunkard may not be the only one intoxicated; the righteous judge may be drunk on pride. And the lover, in their search for connection, may not be the only one in need of redemption; the one passing judgment may be starved for love, seeking validation through their moral superiority rather than true human connection.
Philosophically, this points to a more profound question: who are we to judge? In his wisdom, Socrates taught that the beginning of wisdom is the recognition of our own ignorance. To judge another is, in essence, to claim a knowledge of their inner world that we do not possess. We do not know the battles they fight, the prayers they whisper, the hopes they cling to in the dead of night. And yet, we pretend to know, casting them into boxes labelled ‘sinner’ or ‘saint’ without ever stopping to consider that they, like us, are simply doing their best to navigate the complexities of life. In truth, the church that matters most is not the one we attend on Sunday mornings but the one we carry within us: the quiet, often unspoken place where we reconcile ourselves to life and to the divine. This inner church is where true spirituality happens, away from the prying eyes and judgmental stares of others. In the silence of our hearts, it is here that we offer our prayers, our regrets, our hopes, and our fears.
And so, when we judge others for not being prayerful enough or for not living up to the moral standards we have set, we miss the point entirely. True prayer and spirituality do not need to be performed publicly or loudly. They do not require the approval of others. They happen in the quiet moments, in the church within, where each person, in their own way, seeks to reconcile themselves with the divine. Those who judge others for being drunkards, lovers, or not prayerful enough would do well to remember this: the church that matters is not the one visible to others but the one hidden within the soul. And it is within this hidden church that we, in our own flawed and imperfect ways, do our best to find peace, redemption, and grace.
In the end, those who judge may most need judgment themselves, not from others, but from the conscience they have silenced in their rush to condemn. It is a tragedy that so many of us spend our lives pointing out the perceived flaws in others while ignoring the quiet, inner church where true transformation happens.
If only we could be as merciful to others as we wish God to be to us!
