How Great Is the Righteousness of the Righteous When They Approve of the Unrighteous?

Among the many preachers who travel, preaching the gospel, and who usually are fairly superficial and frivolous, there are a few who seem to be more upright and God-fearing, who live a better life, and whose preaching is more serious and truthful.

I have spoken to such people, pointing out to them the uselessness of their work among superficial people. The good effect of their greater seriousness on souls is completely ruined by the work of all the others.

Besides, they indirectly approve of all this superficiality by not distancing themselves from it and strongly resisting it. The person who agrees with a superficial person is superficial himself even if it does not appear like that in the eyes of the uninformed.

He who does not speak against the usual preaching is complicit in it even though he personally lives and speaks better than most of them.

Elias Aslaksen