I found "patronizing" in my Bible reading today [Mark 5:38-40].
Of course the word "patronizing" isn't there, the culture of unearned affirmation
did not exist until less than a hundred years ago, so there was no need
for a word describing failure to do it, but the situation certainly called
for it (if ever). The 12-year-old daughter of a high ranking religious
leader had died, and Jesus came riding up on his high horse -- there was
no actual horse in the story, neither then nor now, but the term "high
horse" shares vocabulary space with "patronizing" as a metaphor for offering
unwanted advice and/or help from a position of presumed advantage -- and
these professional mourners were paid to be there to help family members
work through their grief, and they were doing their job (no difference
there), and Jesus was acknowledged as a social (rabbi) and technical (healer)
and (as yet unkown, Son of God and King of the Universe) actual high status,
except these paid staff workers knew otherwise in their hearts (again no
difference) because they knew the kid was dead, nevermind what this
idiot outsider said about her just being asleep. But unearned affirmation
did not happen in that culture, so they had no word "patronizing" in their
vocabulary. They had nothing more powerful than to ridicule this idiot
who promptly expelled them from the room so he could do what he was there
to do. The outcome was essentially the same in the current scene, but instigated
differently. Any modern woman of low self-esteem (having received more
unearned than earned affirmation, or maybe only valuing the unearned variety
greater) would have called out Jesus as "patronizing" in that situation.
Or probably only thought it (which means she is the one doing the patronizing),
because they never actually say so until their anger boils up and spills
out over everything.
The word "condescend" occurs once in the KJV, Rom.12:16, where it is encouraged as a good thing to do, and not at all what the people who use the word today want it to mean. Which is probably why it's not used in any modern translation I know of. The Greek word it translates has a completely different meaning "carried away" and my dictionary cites Rom.12:16 as a special case in offering as an alternate meaning "associate with humble people" (which is what the Latin root of the English word means). None of these meanings is anything like the modern insult, because it is a thoroughly modern idea, completely foreign to anything God is responsible for.
Tom Pittman
2022 June 14
Postscript, not quite four weeks later, the Pastor at church defined
"patronizing is doing for people what they can and should do for themselves."
It's certainly not the dictionary definition, but maybe if you bend over
backwards while standing on your head, it might be descriptive of "giving
instructions to people who don't want or need instructions." Or maybe --
because this was in church where everybody is assumed to be a Relationshipist,
especially the Pastor -- the word is nothing more than a meaningless token
of disaffirmation. This Pastor is usually more accurate with his words
than that, so I choose not to consider this occasion to be an exception.
My superior at work came at the problem from a different angle. "Forget
the past," he said, "it can't be changed. Don't use any negatives, just
give them something positive to do." A pastor of another church put it
more succinctly: "Never criticize." I'm guessing he could not follow his
own advice, because his music ministers kept leaving in a rush of tears.
Maybe asking the person to do something positive in the future will work.
I'm willing to try anything that isn't illegal, immoral or fattening. At
least it seems like better advice than they give at church (see my
July 11 Blog post).