Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up Look Up, a podcast where we're looking at things happening in real time and connecting them to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This episode is on Scottie Scheffler, and we're asking the question, are we all too quick to judge? Let me tell you what happened recently with Scottie Scheffler in case you don't know, although most of you probably do. Scottie Scheffler is the number one golfer in the world.

He's the best golfer in the PGA, which is the highest level of professional golf. He's seemingly winning every tournament right now. An incredible incredible golfer. And also seems to be a really great guy. Family guy, husband, father, born again Christian, a guy that everybody speaks highly of, which is why it was so surprising when in a recent golf tournament in Louisville, he ended up in the back of a police car in handcuffs for allegedly assaulting a police officer.

When that happened, social media was going crazy. Not just because the world's number one golfer on the day of a golf tournament was in the back of a police car, but because it was Scottie Scheffler that was seemingly so out of character for who he is. But the reality is that's the world in which we live. Events happen, and then outrage and, excitement, follows. And it it gets me thinking that pastorally, I need to offer some guidance on how we as Christians should engage the next big story on social media.

I mean in this case, it was Scottie Scheffler in handcuffs, but the next time, who knows. Let me just offer some guidance. First, social media makes us aware of a lot of things. I mean, I'm sitting in my house in Hudson, Ohio instantly aware of something happening in Louisville, Kentucky at that very moment. The world's number one golfer is in the back of a police car in handcuffs, and I know about it 6 hours away because I'm on social media.

But awareness is not the same thing as knowledge or understanding. I'm aware that Scottie Scheffler has been arrested. I'm aware that he's been charged with multiple felonies, one of which is assaulting a police officer, but I don't actually know anything. I wasn't there. I don't know what happened.

All I have is the perspective of the people posting on social media. Even the video accounts in the moment are limited from that person's perspective. It doesn't show me everything that's happening. It shows me what they saw. Even witness accounts only really tell me from that person's perspective what they understand to take place.

I'm aware, but I don't know. That's not good because I think I know something I don't actually know. To further complicate that, we live in a culture where the minute you know something, you're expected to have an opinion about it. So it isn't just that I know what happened with Scottie, even though I really don't, but I'm now expected to react in some way. I'm expected to stand up for police officers and say, well, if he assaulted a cop, he goes to prison.

We don't play favorites. It doesn't matter if you're the number one golfer in the world, or I'm expected to have an opinion defending Scottie Scheffler. Scottie wouldn't have done that. That's probably just a police officer on an ego trip or something like that. If you were pro police before the Scottie Scheffler incident, then your opinion is gonna be that the police officer was right and that Scottie deserves to go to jail.

If you're anti police officer before the incident, you're gonna assume that that police officer acted inappropriately and that Scottie is innocent. So you have instant opinions from tribalistic places based on knowledge that those people don't really have. And if all that sounds exhausting, it's because it is. And the truth is a week later, we finally did know what happened. Video evidence suggested that it was really just confusion.

Poor communication, maybe on the police officer's spot. Not great listening skills, maybe on the part of Scottie Scheffler. In a week, all the charges were dropped, no lawsuits were filed, and everyone was ready to move on. But what about all those opinions? What about those awful things that were said?

That's really the point. We are too quick to judge. We pretend we know things we don't know. We respond too quickly and we often come from a tribalistic viewpoint. So what does it mean in this kind of crazy world to live as a Christian?

Well, maybe it means to be the person who separates awareness from knowledge. It might be the person who at the country club says when someone says, what do you think about Scottie? It's the person who says, you know, I don't know what happened. That's the thing. I I don't really have an opinion because I wasn't there.

I'm taking a wait and see approach. Before I respond, I wanna know more. That might sound insane to you, who speaks that way. But 10 years ago, we just called that rationality. We called that logic.

We called that being reasonable. We called that being slow to judge. If it feels crazy to us now, maybe it's not because that's crazy, but because we've become crazy. We have become irrational. Christians should love their neighbor by being slow to form an opinion.

Isn't that what we would want by the way? If it was me in the back of a cop car in handcuffs, I would want people to let things play out before they decided about my character, about the kind of person that I was. Doesn't Scottie deserve that? Doesn't the police officer deserve that? As Christians, we should be the ones taking a wait and see approach.

When all the information's out there, when we really do know something, then and only then will we have an opinion. In the meantime, we love our neighbors too much to rush to judgment. We love our neighbors too much to form opinions about things we don't really understand. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.

This episode of Wake Up Look Up was produced by Noel Aker and Andy Hoffman. Our topic researchers are Caitlin Hynel and Tyler Ritchie. This episode was directed by Andy Hoffman. Our podcast coordinator is Halle Andrews. Our production manager is Marcus Cunningham.

Good tech and engineering support from Matthew Adel and Landon Hull. And our copy editor is Maddy Goebel. I'm your host, Zach Weierach. Join us on the next episode of Wake Up Look Up.