When Someone Is Offended
What should be our response when someone is offended by a statement, an action, or a symbol?
We have a culture where some people seem perpetually offended by both real and imagined occurrences. It seems that if things are removed, canceled, or outlawed every time anyone is offended, before long nothing will be left.
Additionally, the philosophy of removing offensive occurrences is illogical and collapses under the weight of its own dictum, as I might claim that the very action of removing those occurrences is an offense to me. We are then left with the untenable position of requiring that only certain person’s sensibilities are worthy of offense; and if that is the case, then that idea, too, offends me and must be removed.
Common decency, on the other hand, requires that we take seriously the concerns of others. If someone claims to be offended, it is no small thing since the offense felt can cause a rupture in the relationship between people who, for the benefit of both, would do well to get along.
Is there a guiding principle that can assist us in determining how to respond when someone if offended? I believe that the late theologian George Ladd had some good advice when he was discussing how different Christians in the first century responded to being served meat that had been dedicated to idols:
“[L]ove requires that when those with a free conscience find themselves in a situation where the exercise of their freedom would really offend other Christians and cause them to violate their conscience and thus lead them to sin, in love those with a free conscience are to abstain. It would seem obvious that such abstinence is recommended only in cases where the weaker Christian would be actually caused to sin; otherwise the whole standard of conduct in such matters would be decreed by the rigorism of the weakest members.”
Applied to a wider social context, we might conclude that if an occurrence causes actual harm (such as the restriction of inalienable rights), the proper thing to do would be to change the occurrence that caused the injury. However, if an occurrence causes no actual harm, but simply is preferred by another party not to occur again, then the person causing the offense should soberly consider whether, because of the love he has for his neighbor, he should change the occurrence in the future. Likewise, the one offended should consider whether, because of the love he has for the one causing offense, it is most loving to place a burden upon his neighbor to remove the occurrence or simply overlook the offense since no actual harm occurred.
