Well, that sounds ok to me at first. Over the years I’ve become quite used to apologizing to so many different sorts of people not for being wrong, but for being a jerk while I was right. Not for saying anything untrue, but for speaking the truth without love. I am well aware of the problem.

But I can offer this excuse for a start, or maybe it’s only a qualification. I know because I have truth that I am deeply flawed, incomplete without love. It’s a matter of fact, a matter of truth, because it’s there in the Bible. I must speak the truth with love, for the Bible tells me so. But these people who have the truth without love probably won’t ever find out through love alone the importance of truth, justice, and good things like that. So while I know for sure that I’m as bad as any sinner who ever lived for having one without the other, I have a funny feeling I have this much in my favor: I know I have a problem. The people who have love without truth don’t realize their problem, and as long as they’re obsessed with love I don’t know if they’ll get anywhere. Of course, I know that I dearly love the truth, I love it more than I’ll ever love any woman, no matter how incredibly gorgeous she is; but people who love love at the expense of truth . . . won’t get very far.

But don’t think I’ve arrived at my point yet, lovely ladies and gallant gentlemen. Here’s my main point. It would seem that my passion for truth is (there was a little foreshadowing in the first paragraph of the essay) passion for . . . things worth having passion for. Good things, like Truth. Christian doctrine. Jesus Christ. Human life. Hypocrisy (on the negative side). I would ask this: can a person have too much passion for one of these things?

Duh. No. Take that, all my critics. Can a person have too much passion for truth and justice without having enough Christian love for his fellow Christian? Duh. Yes. Take that, me. My apologies to all whom I’ve treated in this way. Don’t get me wrong; if you’re on the other side of the equation, with too much emphasis on kindness or nice-ness at the expense of justice, I absolve you people of no blame whatsoever. You stand guilty, just like I do.

But back to my passion for truth and justice. I was going to tell my readers, whoever they may be, that I have a hard time thinking I should not be so passionate about something. So . . . since we already established that it’s impossible to have too much passion for a good thing (per se), I was looking for another reason to make sense of why such good people are giving me such strange advice. A bit of advice from an ancient lesson pops into my mind: I need to be patient with people. So I have a great passion for truth; so I’m right. Great. Now I have to tell people the truth, ask them to do something about it. Does that cause a problem? Yes. Is the problem mine? Not at first: the problem is theirs.

These people to whom I seem to be too passionate about things . . . are weak. Apparently they’re young. Apparently they don’t love the truth like I do. There’s the beginning of the problem.

Apparently I expect them to love it like I do, and I expect it now. There’s the end of the problem. It starts with them (they’re weak). It ends with me: I’m too impatient with their passion for truth. Object all you want, friends and opponents both, to my being so passionate. But I don't listen to illogical advice, so there are very few reasons I'll accept as criticism. In fact, there is probably just this one, that my passion overwhelms the weaker. Don't tell me to have less passion about something good. Tell me to keep my passion under control for the sake of weaklings; that's ok. (Well, you could maybe tell me to keep my passion under control for the sake of not separating passion from reason. That's not so bad either, but I don't know if anyone's ever actually told me that; most people tell me to keep my passion under control for the sake of other people: other people who should have the same passion, who may even be sinning for not having it.)

And I guess that’s where the love comes in, having compassion for people’s spiritual youth, human weakness, emotional vulnerability, their need to do what’s right only very slowly. Actually, with that final observation, everything makes sense; I think I’ve solved a puzzle. The summary of it is: truth must be expressed with love by being patient. But I’m still kind of depressed.

Here’s why. Here’s my other main point. It’s especially difficult to be patient with people I’m leading when it should be the other way around. It doesn’t seem so bad to me to think about teaching junior high kids about truth and justice, and then letting them have several years to get to the point where they’re ready to do something about it. It’s a little more difficult when my so-called peers care about as much as a golden retriever does for the truth (I think I could be patient with junior highs thinking that way). It’s infuriating when someone older than I am is like that. It’s also depressing. If it’s more infuriating than depressing, I must be judgmental; if the other way around, I must be discerning.

Either way (myself aside), there’s a serious problem when a teacher, a pastor, a Sunday-school teacher, a professor, an important leader of a Christian school, a Christian inspirational speaker, a parent/uncle/grandfather, or whoever . . . cares less about the truth than I do (so many categories; I admit I’ve not seen this in all of them). Can I be patient with someone younger than I am emotionally or spiritually? Sure, any time. But you’re not asking me to do that: you’re asking a lot more than that.

You’re asking me to be patient with people who show signs of being younger than I in some way or other, but are sometime my age and sometimes much, much older than I am, and sometimes . . . my leaders. You’re asking me to be patient with my leaders when they care less about the truth than I do, instead of just being angry at them.

What you are asking is impossible for a human. Fortunately, I have outside, superhuman assistance (nice to be a Christian, isn’t it?). But in the meantime, those of you (you know who you are) who suggest I may come across as too passionate, criticize me cautiously, dear friends; I’m being asked to do something very, very difficult. Be sure you do not ask it of me carelessly. And be sure you don't fail to ask those without a passion for truth to find some.

(Oh, and, by the way, in case you were wondering, yes, I’ve certainly experienced this elsewhere, but I am talking about DBU more than anything else.)

(The Snip responded to this article.)