I watch Larry King and Katie Couric and Rosie O’Donnell and Oprah and American Idol and I listen to Rush Limbaugh and the other night I listened to a guy on the radio who claimed that aliens had landed on the earth and I heard some other guy who said he could talk to the dead and I used to listen to Don Imus sometimes and I occasionally watch Jay Leno and Chris Matthews and Neil Cavuto and I used to watch Judge Wapner on the People’s Court and I surf the net and read everyone from Andrew Sullivan to Pat Buchanan and I have watched Martha Stewart and I like to listen to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and Hannity and Colmes and I mostly try not to watch people running for president because I’m not ready for that yet but I do like Fred Thompson and I listen to Keith Olbermann sometimes too.

So there. I even listen to NPR occasionally. I disagree with people all the time. Do I have to write them or talk to them before I can write about what they say? If so, I’ll never write anything about anything anyone says – unless I happen to agree with it.

So I wrote back with my answer. He wrote back to “respectfully disagree,” he said. Then he added this: "Praise or edify in public, rebuke, correct or disagree in private. Jesus’ words on handling disagreement apply always, They are not relative to a situation or whether a person is “public” or not."

I dunno. Maybe he’s right about that. I agree in principle that it is a good thing to discuss disagreements with others before you take them public. That certainly applies when there is a previously existing personal relationship. When I was in the pastorate, on a few occasions (not very many) people wrote me or called me to discuss something I had said. I was about to say that I always appreciated that, but, well, I didn’t always appreciate it but that was preferable to someone writing their disagreements in a letter to the congregation.

(I should also note that he is applying this to disagreements among Christians while I’m discussing the question of responding to the public statements of public figures – Christian or not – because I think the same principles generally apply across the board.)

But how are we to respond to the public comments of public figures? Those who speak and write for a living understand that when they speak in public to the public, they are inviting public interaction. There is a huge difference between public and private discussion. If Bill O’Reilly were a friend of mine, and if we had a personal conversation, I might be breaking a confidence to publicly comment on a private conversation. But in the nature of the case, Bill O’Reilly broadcasts to the world. Millions of people listen to his words. He understands that people everywhere will comment on what he says. And it is clear that it doesn’t bother him at all.

5) When we do voice disagreements, or when we offer evaluations of what others have said or done, we should try to stay on topic, not paint with a broad brush, keep our emotions in check, and not cast aspersions on the motives of others. That’s hard to do, especially when we are writing about issues that matter deeply to us. It’s easy to try to “play God” and read the hearts of other people. We can judge what people do and what they say, but we can’t judge why they do what they do. Man looks on the outside; God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).