Is being inoffensive a virtue? Ask Jesus

Because I have no self control, I was scanning Twitter last night right before bed. I came upon the above tweet by Dave Smith, a Libertarian comedian. In a knee jerk reaction I disagreed with him, thinking “We don’t want to go around being offensive! Then where would we be as a society?”

Seems simple, right?

But then I sat with it a bit longer. I realized he wasn’t saying “you should be offensive” but instead, was making two claims which upon further thought were probably correct:

“it’s not a virtue to be inoffensive” i.e. living your life without causing offense to anyone isn’t good unto itself. You could achieve it by living under a rock and having no effect on anyone or anything. Hardly something to be proud of.

“it’s a sign of weakness.” This one is a bit trickier since I’m reluctant to call someone weak just because they’re inoffensive. Until I really think about it. Reader, think about who you look up to. Jesus, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Steve Jobs, George Washington, Bernie Sanders. One thing we can say for sure is they offend the hell out of a lot of people. Even when I pull random names out the air (Amelia Earhart!) it’s true. Despite the many that loved her, I’m sure she was still seen by some as an upstart feminist who should stop giving women wild ideas about independence.

So it would appear that by being in the public square at all you will be seen by many as offensive. It might even be true that the more important your fight, the more offensive you will be.

My mind went next to something I’ve thought a lot about lately: How Jesus offended the hell out of many of the elites in his day (not being punny). The new testament is brimming with instances of Jesus triggering religious elites by pointing out their hypocrisy. One example that comes to mind is, after Jesus spoke at the synagogue in his home town, they literally tried to throw him off a cliff.

Luke 4:28–29 (CSB): “When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They got up, drove him out of town, and brought him to the edge of the hill that their town was built on, intending to hurl him over the cliff.

So, what did Jesus say to so upset the local townspeople? He reminded them, in so many words, that because of sin an unbelief God has overlooked towns like theirs in the past and let them suffer tragedy, implying that his very town probably had some sin and unbelief to grapple with. (Luke:23–27)

And how did they react? With utter self-righteousness. Rather than consider that maybe Jesus had a point, they just got riled up and tried to murder him.

So, did Jesus know he was going to offend them? Obviously. Okay, let’s go further: did Jesus offend them intentionally? This is hard to say. If the answer is yes, then it could look an awful lot like Jesus was trolling the locals (he wasn’t). We do know he expressed himself harshly. He could have said it a whole lot nicer. He chose not to. As to whether he wanted to offend them, I’m not sure, but what we do know for sure is that he was committed to telling them the absolute, unvarnished truth even if it offended them to the point of murderous rage.

Jesus was very strong and very effective. His message and deeds have been the driving force in Western Civilization for two millennia. If we think of Jesus as a symbol of strength, and we consider that he was so offensive to the religious elite that they actively conspired to have him executed, we have to recognize his strength and offensiveness as a package. They’re inseparable. Surely if Jesus had the option to get everything done he wanted done and “be nice” all the time on top of it, he would have. We can say confidently that wasn’t an option.

So circling back to Dave’s quote. Dave asserts being inoffensive is a sign of weakness. Judging by Jesus’ example above, strength and offensiveness are inseparable. So through this framework, Dave’s statement is true.

Here is where I put the obligatory disclaimer: being offensive for its own sake is bad. It’s all based on intent. There’s trolling, there’s being careless, and there’s being honest. All three can offend. Jesus definitely only did the third one. I’m not endorsing being offensive for it’s own sake — that’s very bad and drives cultural division in a time when we really need healing. What I’m endorsing is being honest even when it’s offensive which, if you’re as honest and direct as Jesus, will happen all the time.