Saige's writeup here reminded me of a point that was made by the
teacher of a
Christian Ethics class I took a long time ago. He was a pretty
fundamentalist guy -
Southern Baptist,
born-again Christian,
Creationist, all that good stuff - but he was pretty
open-minded and
tolerant, too. I was (and am, for that matter) an
agnostic (
Bible Belt prep school forced me to take the class, but I don't regret it), so you would think the two of us would've been at each other's throats the entire
semester - but he only ever attacked something I said when it was
illogical or
inconsistent with my stated beliefs. He never, ever called me or my beliefs
evil, though he would make it readily known that he disagreed with me. When, during an informal after-class discussion, this
topic came up, he said:
"A Christian has no right to judge by the canon anyone who is outside the canon."
It's basically an extension of the "judge not lest thee be judged thyself" principle, but a little refined. It basically means one Christian can attack another for being un-Christian or for not following Christian principles, but he cannot attack a non-Christian for the same because that person is not bound by Christian principles. Its a simple idea, but its amazing how little it is known or followed.
Aside: I'm not sure where he got this idea, but its a safe bet C.S. Lewis talks about it somewhere (the guy loved Lewis). If anyone knows where, drop me a /msg.