Are You Easily Offended?

In recent years, a lot of attention has been given in the news, politics, and academia to the notion of “offenses” and “microaggressions” over numerous potential slights, offenses, and “triggers” that people claim to experience. Sometimes it seems as though individuals and groups everywhere are determined to find things to be offended about—and often find them. But is it healthy to be hypersensitive to any perceived offense?

The list of things that “trigger” offense grows daily as old words, definitions, and values are now deemed—though without universal agreement—to be offensive. There are a dizzying number of new terms just invented to assuage the sensitivities of a growing list of newly categorized people. Some are hypersensitive and hyperreactive when new politically correct inventions are “violated.” From casual observation, it seems that so-called “safe spaces,” where an offended, emotionally “endangered” victim can take asylum to assuage hurt feelings, are in effect for both sides. But with an ever-growing number of differences (political, ideological, gender designations, racial, ethnic, etc.), how many different safe spaces will be necessary for the offended?

To offend is to violate a law or rule, or to injure or cause discomfort or anger. To be offended is to feel upset, annoyed, or resentful. Being offended is a feeling. When a person is offended, it is of their own subjective, personal feeling and interpretation of something someone said or did.

Conflating feelings with facts is emotional reasoning—a negative and inaccurate cognitive distortion of thinking that is not based on facts. False beliefs, negative biases, misinterpreted events, ignored facts, and other forms of cognitive distortion lead to incorrect conclusions and perceived offenses.

James, the half-brother of Jesus Christ, wrote about offense in a biblical passage the King James Version translates this way: “For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body” (James 3:2). Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines ptaiō, the Greek word here translated “offend,” as “to cause one to stumble or fall… to stumble… to err, to make a mistake… to sin… to fall into misery.” The New King James Version correctly translates this verse as, “For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.”

James later wrote that what we say often causes offense—that “no man can tame the tongue” and that it is “an unruly evil, full of deadly poison” (v. 8). He wrote that our approach should be “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (vv. 17–18). No one practices this approach perfectly, and we all offend from time to time, but we have a responsibility to strive to be inoffensive whenever we can.

Jesus said, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones” (Matthew 17:1–2). Indeed, Jesus avoided offending people unnecessarily (Matthew 17:27). But He did offend the Pharisees, scribes, priests, and others—because He spoke the truth (e.g., Matthew 13:57; 15:12). We must speak the truth, but we must speak it in love, as He did (Ephesians 4:15). The Apostle Paul acknowledged that whether someone is offended is not always within our control (see Romans 12:18), but he also warned against intentionally offending someone or causing someone to stumble (Romans 14:21).

Some have the distorted thinking that “canceling,” shouting down, breaking, smashing, burning, and destroying in a great show of offense will make a statement that will help them get their way. Never mind that they will interrupt and disrupt with extreme prejudice anyone with an opposing view—and, while refusing to hear any perspective but their own, continue the endless cycle of offenses.

But you don’t have to succumb to the cycle, and you can learn to deal with greater offenses to come. Christ’s teachings are more than a religion—they are the true Way to a fulfilling life. To learn more, read the study guide What is a True Christian?