The Attraction to Legalism

Does any of the current discussion relate to how “fundamentalism” has taught scripture, text focused or application focused? Do we allow the Spirit to help people make applications of the Word to their life or does our desire to have them look a certain way and think a certain way instantly, reflecting of the culture we are trying to create in the church result in a list based Christianity. We must differentiate between what God has said and what fundamentalist culture has said. There must be an allowance for Christian liberty in areas not addressed and progressive sanctification to be realized without short cutting that essential work because we might be uncomfortable with different.

I wonder what Matt is trying to accomplish. Who is he trying to “preach” to? What behavior that he has chosen to do is he trying to defend/justify? I see no real merit in a piece like this other than to create dissension.

I think the bigger question we as individuals need to ask ourselves is how am I following God’s direct command to “Be ye holy as I am holy.” I also need to ask ourselves how we are being different from the world - ie. how are we offering them something different than what they have/are. I dare say that many of our actions do not appeal to them. When they see us dress like them, act like them, etc, they see us as hypocrites because we “preach” to them that they are a sinner in need of a Savior, but then our life styles don’t indicate anything differently.

I have an “ex” aunt that is still unsaved to this day. Years ago she told my mother that growing up she and her family behaved better than the preacher’s family so they saw no reason for their “religion.” Unfortunately, others have continued to be a poor example. She is someone that our family still try to reach and pray for daily. We strive to show her true Christianity and live it out for her as well.

Its interesting to me that people who most often tell us to be “tolerant” of others or less “legalistic” are often the most intolerant.

God didn’t give us specific commands about “Thou shalt not wear ________” or Thou shalt not read ________’” or Thou shalt not watch __________”, ect, but He did give us specific commands about loving not the world, doing all to His glory, and the list could go on. We all know the first list I gave would change with time, but the 2nd list is unchanging. I believe that some in the church are failing to really apply the New Testament commands to ever aspect of life, but instead chose to focus on the “liberty” passages of scripture.

My dad has said (and frankly I think he may well be right) that when the rapture comes the church will have become so much like the world that the world won’t miss us.

“Years ago she told my mother that growing up she and her family behaved better than the preacher’s family so they saw no reason for their “religion.”

I can see what you are saying, Michelle. In a somewhat larger picture, I share in the frustration; this is what LDS say about evangelicals in America. But let me just throw out a tad bit more of my two cents in this conversation.

Sometimes a whole community oozes that mentality of a behaving better. It’s tough. Very tough ground for Christianity to grow. Where a vast portion of the community displays the attitude of the older brother of the prodigal son in the Bible. They have rules. They have conduct. They have behavior. They have top-notch boy scout mentality. They have scriptures. They have hymn singing. They have well-ordered families. They have financial success. They give to those in need. When you have problems, they will be the first to call or visit you in the hospital. They have baby adoption centers. They have thrift stores. They have legislation against gambling and drinking. They have Sunday-Sabbath regulations. They have zeal, sincerity, service for neighbors and community, and love ramped up to the nth degree. They live fervently by the code that they teach.

But their convicted, civil legalism is utterly blinding them to what is really an inward, blatant, rebellious worldliness, far more insidious than the drunk at the local bar, the prostitute in the motel, the man declaring bankruptcy, or the wayward teenager. Because deep, down inside, they refuse to believe that it is only the sovereign, free, extravagant grace of the Lord that enables one to overcome and be victorious in the end. Unfortunately, the Law has not brought them to the end of themselves. Sort of like in a prideful, perverted sort of way, my sinful human nature thinks that I can sincerely keep Aaron’s list of four rules in the opening of this thread without the Lord’s grace. It’s a disgusting aspect of my nature that I long to cast off.

I find it ironic how Jesus can take the worst offending, law-breaking sinner in a community to show a conservative, moral American town how spiritual bankrupt they really are.

I think Matt is on to something that needs to be talked about more within Christian fundamentalism. The Christian fundamentalist has the atomic bomb that blows to pieces LDS fundamentalism, religious legalism, and American moralism, etc. The bomb is gospel grace. Under the guidance of the Spirit, let’s detonate the bomb the shatters the seductive attractiveness.

[Jay]

Todd’s post reminded me of Matthew 5:17-44

Christ Came to Fulfill the Law

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Anger

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift…

Lust

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell…

Divorce

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery…

Oaths

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King…

Retaliation

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles…

Love Your Enemies

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven…

Think about that passage for a minute. The first thing that Jesus wants to teach the multitudes here is how utterly screwed up and deceitful their trust in their ‘religion’ is. Then He announces that He is better than what they have heard said, and then finally He reemphasizes the impossibility of keeping the law. Is it little wonder that when Matthew finishes recording the story, he closes with “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Matt. 7:28-29).

Some of the complaints that I’m hearing on this page sound more like shrieks of outrage that our norms are up for discussion or debate than they are shrieks of realizing how utterly we’ve deceived ourselves and each other and subsequent pleas for forgiveness from the Judge that stands at the door (James 5:9).

And in a similar context Christ points out “But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” No matter how you read it both are expected from the Savior. Not sure what the “shrieks of outrage” you are hearing are all about.

(Lee, I easily follow Jay’s train of thought, but to be honest, what you wrote makes me uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable because of unresolved fuzziness in my mind. It has been a perplexing issue for me as I read contemporary Jewish commentaries, watch internet broadcasts, and listen to Messianic Jewish preachers on Direct TV - humorous, I know. I get the impression sometimes that Jewish brothers think that I am reading the Bible through the lens of the apostolic fathers, or Anselm, or Martin Luther, or Calvin, and that I got it all wrong and have completely missed the Hebraic understanding and application of the text. What are the rules for Jewish believers today in 2012 for life and worship? And should believing Gentiles put themselves more under the umbrella of the Jewish way than the American Protestant way for aid in constructing scriptural application in a life of holiness? But alas, I would imagine that discussion to those questions could / should be regulated to a separate post / thread.)

So back to rules, holiness, righteousness, and self-righteousness and Matt Olson’s plug on the sinful attractiveness of legalism in American fundamentalism.

Jay,

If you want to discuss a particular norm, then fine with me. What we are discussing here is the legitimacy of any norms. Are extra-biblical “rules, regulations, and guidelines” inherently Legalism and Phariseeism? I do not believe they necessarily are. Could they become such? Yes. But the indictment seems to be that if a religious institution has extra-biblical “rules, regulations, and guidelines” then they are inherently guilty of self-righteousness and all the other incendiary indictments Matt listed in his article. His audience is “all OUR churches” (emphasis mine). By implication in his own personal testimony, he does not reflect well upon his alma mater either, since that is where he received his ministerial training during his own self-admitted practice of legalism. Well, it was during those “destructive” years that he started and pastored an excellent IFB church which is still thriving today under Pastor Will Senn. That church has extra-biblical norms. Are their norms causing “destruction” worse than the practice of “sexual perversion, alcohol, drugs” etc. ? Absolutely not and it is absurd to suggest so!

Frankly, I am a little concerned that some pastors and Christian education leaders keep telling us all that the new standard of holiness is to celebrate being “Freer than thou”, that if the Bible does not specifically list something as evil then I can participate in it. It takes little imagination to think where that rubric will lead us.

By the way, in the passages you cited, Jesus raises the standard in nearly every case. The problem with standards generally is that they are too low, not too high! On that I think we can agree.

It’s important to avoid overstatement on both sides of this question.

I’m sympathetic to what Olson is talking about… to a degree. I saw a lot of legalistic (as in, resembling legalism) stuff in the 70’s and early 80’s and, as a result, got a kind of itch to take this way of thinking apart. The itch slowly faded as I found myself encountering less and less of that and more and more of the opposite (“Antinomianism?” Maybe the opposite poles on this scale are true legalism and true antinomianism, but points shy of those poles are much more common).

So I tend to react to a post like that because my experience in the last couple of decades has lead me to believe “our churches” are far more typically guilty of something like libertinism than they are of legalism. But I suppose it all depends on what you’re exposed to. I’m sure in some necks of the woods legalistic oversimplification (and that’s really what it is—oversimplification) is a huge problem. But the trend is not in that direction.

The trend is toward anything goes… toward variations of “I sincerely love God, so I can do whatever I want until God fixes me so that I don’t want it anymore.” This kind of no-boundaries passivity.

I didn’t get the impression from Olson’s article that he was saying “legalism” is worse than or more dangerous than adultery, murder, or whatever. If that idea’s there, I missed it. But he does seem persuaded that “legalism” is a widespread problem. It’s hard for me understand how someone can come to that conclusion in our times.

But you know how we all tend to be: if you run into something amiss several times over a few months you get the impression there’s a vast undiscovered continent of trouble there. But FWIW, I think the vast undiscovered continent is the quasi-antinomianism problem that has long plagued evangelicalism and increasingly plagues what remains of fundamentalism as well.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about as quasi-antinomianism (maybe drop the quasi for this one). In a Christianity Today article that posted yesterday Max Lucado talks about how he discovered grace.

My first encounters with faith came about the time I was a Boy Scout, at about 14 or 15. I made the logical deduction that they operate the same way; I treated my faith like earning a merit badge, and everything about Christianity was about earning merit badges.
That’s a common mistake. I think that’s the reason Paul wrote the book of Galatians. There are merit badge earners in the church where I pastor. There’s some of that still in me. It’s a constant battle to say, You know what? I will never add one iota to the finished work of Christ on the cross. My best work will not make me more saved than I was. But we default to legalism. It makes such sense to us.

So, as a kid, I thought, Okay. I’ll do my part and God will do his part, and we’ll all be happy. Then I found out, number one, I don’t have a rule book; number two, the rules I do see I can’t even keep. I remember as a kid the preacher saying that if you even look at a woman with adultery in your heart, it’s a sin. I remember thinking, How in the world am I never going to look at a woman with adultery in my heart? That’s the weight that comes on the legalist, and it was starting to suffocate me even as a kid. It suffocates people still.

See the problem here? He has implied that taking the words of our Lord seriously and intending to actually obey them (and believing it is possible to do so) are “legalism.” I encounter this kind of thinking all over the place in print and in conversation.

(If you read further, you find that Lucado doesn’t even want to make grace contingent on faith, let alone any kind of grace being contingent on obedience [see 2 Pet. 3.18 on that]… which leaves what? … grace is all divine puppeteering while we just sit back and hope it will happen to us? This idea is foreign to the NT.)

“Why is legalism so attractive? It is attractive because it feeds the sinful flesh. It may not feed the flesh in the same way that sexual perversions, alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity do, but it does feed the flesh. And, I will argue that it does so in a more dangerous way, because it deceives a person into thinking he is doing the right thing while in fact he is destroying his life and the lives of those around him. Legalism feeds our fleshly bent toward self-righteousness.”

Aaron,

Here Matt argues that Legalism feeds the sinful nature in a more dangerous way than sexual perversion, alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity and ends up destroying one’s own life and the lives of others. At the end of the article he defines legalism as having extra-biblical “rules, regulations, and guidelines”. Does Matt really mean that? I doubt it. That is why this article is flawed and one-sided. If I turned the tables on Matt and said his view was “antinomianism” and “libertinism”, I think he would have reason to seriously object to those labels and characterizations. The terms “Legalism” and “Pharisee” are equally incendiary. They should be applied with caution and precision, not shot-gun blasts toward our favorite target of fundamentalism.

Other than that, I fully agreed with your last two posts. I think you are completely on target.

Aaron, in a way, your example of quasi-antinomianism is itself an example of the overstatement that you (correctly) caution against in your post previous to that. I say this because, at least to my mind, Max Lucado is not a leading light among convervative evangelicals, let alone fundamentalists. He is not someone I would ever expect to point to for support on the issues of legalism or sanctification; certainly not to the SharperIron audience. (If you’re correctly describing the subsequent errors Lucado makes, you’re essentially proving my point.) So as someone who tends to agree with Olson’s post and to disagree with (at least parts of) your initial response to Olson’s post, it’s an overstatement or a straw man for you to point to anything from Max Lucado as an example of what my end of the spectrum looks like or might lead to.

Just so we’re clear, and without knowing what else Lucado says (precisely because I’ve never regarded him as a careful theologian), using Jesus’ teaching regarding lust as an example of legalism is wrong. The problem with what he remembers being taught, if that’s all there was to it, was that the teaching seemed to imply that his relationship with God would be permanently damaged if he ever lusted in his heart, and he was self-aware enough to realize that at least some such lust was nearly inevitable. So as a result he felt suffocated, and understandably so. Apparently, the teaching he received about lust wasn’t balanced by an acknowledgment that it is very common for even godly men to lust in their hearts (that’s why Jesus’ teaching was so radical to his audience) and that we’d all be sunk if it weren’t for Christ’s propitiation and the Holy Spirit’s work in sanctification. He wasn’t taught, apparently, that because of God’s love and provision for us, our response when we fail to meet Christ’s standard can and ought to be to run immediately to Him rather than to despair.

BSA! Hoorah! I am ready to break out with our patrol cheer.

Next spring, over 12,000 boys will be gathering in Shelley, Idaho (just south of where I live). The theme of this several day southeastern Idaho Jamboree will be “Put on the whole armor of God!” The first phase for every boy in the priesthood is to achieve their Arrow of Light in Cubscouts and then their Eagle Scout rank. The second phase is four years of high school seminary training. The third phase is two years of aggressive, sacrificial missionary service and where you “Return with Honor.” Personally, I am highly impressed and attracted to all this subjugation of the flesh through the hard work and discipline. I don’t think that there is anything like it on such a massive scale for the battle against antinomianism among boys in America. The whole process is unified, organized, and goal-oriented. Rules are spelled out and clear. The boys to young men have manuals that guide their lives from 2nd grade to 2 years past high school. Then it is off to BYU. And another Honor Code Manual. From a human standpoint, this mechanism of training for boys seems to be the very antidote in America for lawlessness and lasciviousness. But then again, is it? Why the drifting into postmodern Mormonism later? The Agnosticism? The Atheism?

I think it is gospel grace encounters that capture the hearts of boys forever not rules.

And speaking of “just sitting back and hope it will happen”, I wouldn’t advocate that philosophy, Aaron. And I don’t think Matt Olson would either. And even where I would disagree with PCA brothers on certain issues, I don’t think that even such a national promoter of “gospel grace for living” like Tullian Tchividjian believes that, even though he is accused of that.

But going back to the Sermon the Mount and not lusting after a woman. Unlike what Lucado might write, surely we make application. I cannot watch certain things on Direct TV. I cannot go to some movies. I cannot lounge on a beach and stare at bikinis all day. I cannot open up a magazine and linger over pictures. But the rules are not going to make me a better Christian. Put me alone in the desert of Nevada or the central wilderness of Idaho and I am still full of lust. O wretched man that I am, what can help me to be Christlike? And what is it that is going to help any young man in a Christian college?

Many if not all of the posts in this thread that are critical of Olson’s post share a common straw man — the defense of institutional rules of behavior. Of course an institution such as a Christian college is going to have rules of behavior and administration. But Olson’s post isn’t talking about institutional rules that are merely in place to keep order. (That’s why the posts about Roberts Rules of Order are completely off point.) Olson is talking about extra-biblical rules that churches impose, either formally in their statements of faith or in their preaching, or informally in the culture of the congregation, as requirements of real sanctification. In other words, a good Christian WILL do this and WILL NOT do that (even though neither the do nor the don’t is actually in the Bible). And we all know the most common examples of this: degrees of specificity for women’s dress, men’s hair, music style (in church and in private), musical instruments, movies, TV, education choices, college choices, church attendance, alcohol (and no, I don’t drink). There are of course many others, of varying degrees of subtlety.

I don’t attend a fundamentalist church any more, except to visit, but (as they say) some of my best friends are fundamentalists (as are some of my family, in-laws, etc.), and I’m still plugged into various fundamentalist networks (including SI). So I know from first-hand observation that legalism remains a major problem in fundamentalism. (Really, there’s no further proof needed than many of the posts on SI.) But I also know that legalism is a major problem in conservative evangelicalism too. It’s not just the fundamentalists. As Olson states, it’s all of us, because legalism appeals to our flesh. We accept (or say we accept) that salvation is not of works, but that’s completely contrary to our innate pride that separated us from God in the first place, and we battle even after conversion to keep our tendency toward self-righteousness in check.

On the other hand, Aaron is right that anti-nomianism is a major problem too. I think that’s also innate — we want simultaneously to make up our own rules and to believe that keeping whatever rules we make for ourselves makes us acceptable to God. So, Aaron, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that anti-nomianism is more of a problem than legalism. I think it’s more accurate to say that both are major problems in fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism today; it just depends on what day it is, what the particular issue is, what local church it is, who the pastor is, etc. Olson chose to address legalism in his post, and he’s right. That doesn’t mean that he endorses or ignores anti-nomianism.

From http://bible.org/seriespage/fatal-failures-religion-2-legalism-matthew-…

Having spent considerable time on this danger of legalism, let me give you my definition of it. Legalism is an attitude which equates righteousness with external compliance with a code of conduct. This code may be correct or incorrect. Our conduct may or may not measure up to the standard. The reasons why it is so devastating are:

it ignores or underestimates the role of inner attitude and motivation;
it focuses upon self-effort rather than on divine enablement;
it encourages pride rather than humble dependence upon God;
it tends to ‘use’ the Scriptures to reinforce our own preconceived ideas and preferences;
it tends to conceive of our acceptance with God as performance oriented;
it arouses the flesh and incites us to sin, rather than the avoidance of sin;
it tends to impose one’s personal convictions on others, and to condemn them if they fail to live up to our rules.
Legalism cannot save you, my friend, and neither can it sanctify. Praise God!

David,

We are not saved by good works, but dare I suggest to you that faith which does not inevitably produce good works is not saving faith. Otherwise, what is the book of James or 1 John or Hebrews all about? Is it legalism to you that a church, home, school give guidelines on modesty, faithfulness in church attendance, distinctives in male/female appearance, what is or is not appropriate material for entertainment, how worship is to be conducted? Was Paul a legalist in 1 Corinthians 11 when he insisted that women could not pray in church without the customary shawl delineating them from the male gender and symbolizing submission to male leadership in the church and directly compared it to the violation of the natural order? Our culture is so different than the culture in the 1st century. There is the real danger of making the Bible culture-bound to the first century and becoming cultural determinists in the 21st century. While some of your concerns are valid. I think you are over-reaching.