No Greater Burden

“Nor must we speak evil of the dead. Let nothing but what is good be said of the departed.”

— Francis Spirago,
The Catechism Explained

“And he departed with no one’s regret.”

— 2 Chronicles 21:20, concerning
Jehoram king of Judah

During his last few years, my father resolved to clear his office of as much clutter as possible rather than leave behind a mess for others to deal with. Almost every time I would visit, he’d invite me to take a few books home with me. I carried off perhaps twenty hardcovers in all, heavy on the writings of the fourth and fifth generations of Plymouth Brethren. Those faded spines were artifacts of my childhood. After Dad went to be with the Lord, I resolved to read every one of them. Presumably he had, so I could do it too.

And I did. It was an interesting experience. Times have certainly changed.

Time Capsules and Religious Baggage

The commentaries were fine, filled with careful exegesis and quotations from Greek and Hebrew scholars to help exposit the meaning of scripture in an attempt to understand how the first century readers of God’s word understood it. I could see why Dad kept them around. These remain useful reference material; they were all Bible scholars had to work with in the days before the internet. They are heavy on facts and evidence, light on opinion and application, and maintain their value to this day.

Other books were time capsules packed with the religious baggage of their era. These I liked a great deal less. Some writers of this era multiplied rules like mosquitos after a wet spring. A single verse of scripture generated five pages of often-questionable application at an almost Talmudic level of detail. Rule upon rule upon rule seemed more Victorian than first century, odd since the dead institutionalism of the Church of England is said to have been the impetus for the original Plymouth Brethren gathering only to the name of Christ. (Plymouth Brethren was what others called them, not what they called themselves.)

So where was the freedom for which Christ has set us free in the writings of their descendants? I wondered. It made me long for the simplicity of the Jewish church’s answer to the Gentiles: “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.”

“No greater burden.” To these early twentieth century writers, that would have been a novel concept.

The Whiff of Creeping Legalism

Time has passed, and I’ve done plenty of reading since. As it turns out, there was nothing uniquely “brethren” about Dad’s books from the interwar years. They were of their era. Everything I’ve read from denominational writers circa 1919-1938 has a similar whiff of creeping legalism about it, in some places more pungent than others, whether high church, low church or non-denominational.

The quote above from The Catechism Explained, for example, dates from 1927, two sentences from a lengthy attempt by a Roman Catholic writer to apply the teaching of just one of the Ten Commandments. A single line from the Old Testament generates a plethora of scripturally supportable — and more than a few unsupportable — assertions about appropriate Christian conduct with regard to various sorts of “evil speaking”. Perhaps it is indeed inappropriate to speak ill of the dead, but the word of God certainly does it in spades, retelling the good and evil deeds of the patriarchs, prophets and early believers unflinchingly. They are most definitely in the ground, and yet some of the more important lessons they teach us come by way of their missteps and failings. The writers of scripture had no compunction about “speaking evil” of their own dead. When Jehoram shuffled off this mortal coil, nobody missed him, king though he was, and the writer of Chronicles makes sure we know it.

If, carried along by the Holy Spirit, these writers were unconcerned they were entering a spiritual danger zone by making mention of the well-established faults of their dead brothers and sisters, who are we to embrace loftier standards? I’d be entirely fine with my siblings making spiritual mileage of me as a cautionary tale, assuming they all make it to my funeral.

Shortchanged by Freedom

Perhaps the problem is that Mr. Spirago cannot seem to decide exactly what “speaking evil” means. That phrase comes from Ephesians 4:31 in the old King James, and translates the Greek blasphēmia, a word encompassing Old Testament-style blasphemy against God, the fantasy-blasphemy of which the Pharisees accused the Lord Jesus (the concept had gotten a little muddled by the first century), slander, taunting, mockery, false accusation and even misquotation of humans and other beings, especially those in authority. That’s a fairly wide range of verbal activities, but all have this in common: evil intent and falsehood. Many of these same words, uttered in sincerity and truth with the intent to warn sinners or prick the conscience of the self-deluded, would have no evil component at all. The evil is not in the language itself, but depends entirely on the motive and accuracy of the speaker. We know at least two worthies who freely used the phrase “brood of vipers” to describe, well, a brood of vipers, and these were vipers with spiritual authority.

Mr. Spirago’s definition of speaking evil, assuming he had one worked out, would have to be considerably more expansive. He even includes activities that do not involve speaking at all (suspicion), thus creating a greater burden of self-scrutiny and eggshell-treading than the text he is expositing will bear. It all feels ponderous and impossible, as if, having left aside the ceremonial and civil laws given to Israel, we Christians felt shortchanged by the freedom and simplicity of our faith and set about inventing for ourselves a few more moral restrictions out of what we have in common with Moses.

Conduct and Meaning

I do think there is a better and much less complicated way to order our conduct than multiplying the New Testament rules for living that already exist. To the limited extent that the Christian life is a matter of following rules, these are the product of apostolic teaching, and the apostles practiced what they preached. “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.” Paul not only told his converts how to behave, he gave himself to them as an illustration.

Therefore, the safest method of interpreting an expression like “evil speaking” is to observe apostolic conduct as recorded in the historical portions of the word of God. Post-Pentecost, if the apostles did it or recommended it and no correction is provided in the context, we can be sure it’s not a bad thing to do, even if it sounds uncharitable by our current cultural standards.

The Galatians Test

Let’s apply that interpretive principle to the question of what Paul intended to communicate with the phrase “evil speaking”. Should Paul have avoided confronting Peter publicly over his legalism and cowardice because “a good man puts the best construction on everything”, as Spirago claims, and “love covers a multitude of sins”? Sometimes discernment and experience tell you there IS no good construction to we can put on someone’s actions. They’re just flat-out wrong, and leading others seriously astray.

Look at the situation. Not only did Paul publicly imply Peter was acting hypocritically, he then recorded his accusation in Galatians, labeling Peter’s conduct “hypocrisy”, so that generations of Christians would read about it and learn from it. Oh, and he makes sure we know that Barnabas behaved hypocritically too. Peter, indicted by Paul’s recounting of the story in one of the earliest letters to churches, stands squarely behind the man who exposed him. He calls what Paul wrote “scripture”, and the man who humiliated him in public “beloved”.

Primary conclusion: Paul wasn’t “speaking evil” by any scriptural definition, even if he might have violated Mr. Spirago’s Post-Victorian Rules of Spiritual Etiquette. Secondary conclusion: It may or may not be evil speaking when we do something similar. Only the motivation and the circumstances can tell us that.

This is the problem with rules that go beyond exposition of the text: they proliferate like baby bunnies, et voilà, we find ourselves back under law. We are better to stick with the principles and attempt to apply them in love as each situation requires. No greater burden of niggling details should be assumed.