Cynicism And Christ

The cynical worldview portrays anything good as yet another, sneakier way to do evil. There are some situations in which this approach is justified, but there are many situations in which it a completely wrong thing to do. This kind of thinking attacks anything that is good – sometimes viciously. And that creates a worse world.

There are certainly many things masquerading as good that are not good at all. But there are also things that are genuinely good. When dealing with someone who has a cynical attitude, it takes extreme amounts of patience to have anything to do with them. Any number of people, when faced with such things, are likely to give up and do something else. In my case, there were situations in which I wound up heart-broken. The cynical person would keep finding ways to portray anything I did or said as a way to do wrong; and even when I genuinely loved such a person I got attacked. I finally had had it with such people, and after a while I left them alone even when I actually loved them.

Now I was never a cynic, but I did have a negative attitude. It took amazing amounts of patience on the part of Christ to bring me around toward His ways. For me to become a Christian is about as likely as it is for a Nazi woman to marry a Jewish man. I come from Jewish atheists, including a grandmother who was a Communist, and Christianity was one of the last things that I was likely to believe. However Christ has proven Himself to me again and again; and as persistent as I had been in dealing with the cynics, He has been much more persistent with me as well as much wiser and much more effective in what He did.

Looking back at it I find a number of people who had positive intentions toward me whom I thought to be doing the wrong thing. In some situations I was nasty to them, and I recognize now how wrong that behavior had been. Goodwill is a precious commodity and should be respected. That is even the case when it comes from a place that you regard wrongfully as being hostile or from a place from which you would not expect it to come.

Now any number of cynics are, as Clinton said, disappointed idealists, and any number of them want to be proven wrong. However they set the standard so high that no human being can meet it, and in any number of cases wanting to be proven wrong turns out to be a game. They would look for anything to pick on, and they would demand impossible standards. Nobody would meet these standards; so they will say that they have been right all along.

So that when you are dealing with a cynic, be careful for this behavior. They will pick on anything. You have to be perfect to get through to them; and the only perfect being is Jesus Christ. It took Jesus Christ to get me to turn around. It may take a lesser being for many others; but in some cases the job is too hard for anyone except Him.