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Christian Network

I can almost hear the cries of protest that this essay’s title will incite in the more conservative circles of the Evangelical Church. To head off such a response may I affirm my belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, at least as it was originally given. This is not about not holding to biblical literalism or the absolute Lordship of Christ. This article is about what happens when Pharisee-ism gets recycled with a cross around its neck.

One of the very basic truths we receive from the Pauline writings of the New Testament is that creating a list of do’s and don’ts for the followers of Christ is not of God. This fact seems to be lost among some Christians who feel that a certain asceticism is the most important requirement for walking with Jesus. These are the brethren who inform us that indulging in anything from the theater to certain kinds of music, from dancing to having a glass of wine are ‘of the Devil’. They also often declare themselves to be qualified to tell the rest of us ‘erring’ brothers and sisters (if, indeed, they still would consider us such) what is acceptable to God and what isn’t.

There was a time when the author also believed that Christianity was mostly about do’s and don’ts. Assuming personal moral purity, at least in this area, I felt I judged others actions quite clearly. Uncrossed t’s and undotted i’s were immediately apparent to me and I often shared my "concern" for other’s walks by informing them that this or that was wrong in the eyes of God. Whatever these things were they seemed obviously condemnable in my eyes and, of course, what was in my eyes was absolute truth.

Many years passed before I realized that it was often more about my envy and jealousy of other’s freedoms then it was about my pursuit of holiness. Let’s just say I began to see that what was in my own eye was a large tree trunk. I also began to see that at least some of my unhappiness in life came from forsaking things that God did not require me to forsake. In His name I had thrown the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Many of the legitimate pleasures of this earthly existence got tossed with the illegitimate ones. As I began to clue in to the wrongness of trying to pursue a walk with Christ in this way I also started to see that I had sometimes hurt others as well as myself. I had become a Pharisee, a man who thought himself able to naturally discern good from evil, a man who thought himself more moral than others and better equipped to show them the error of their ways.

Since my eyes were opened, often painfully I might add, I have become less arrogant and gradually more able to enjoy the kind of abundant life that is the polar opposite of the life of a Pharisee. I’m not as willing to judge some activity or, more importantly, the persons engaged in that activity. But I remember the way I was and that has helped me to recognize that a lot of fundamentalists still live this way.

As I said earlier, by Fundamentalist, I do not mean those who hold strongly to biblical orthodoxy. Rather I am talking about those who think not being of the world means abstaining from anything that doesn’t show up in Scripture. Sometimes these people would have us ban things that do show up like dancing or drinking alcohol. In their eyes David did not dance and Jesus turned the water into unfermented grape juice. But David did dance and our Saviour turned the water into real wine. The Lord even gave us the Song of Soloman, a gloriously erotic book that helps us to know that our sexual nature is not, inherently, some sort of necessary evil in the economy of God. He gave us music and art too and why wouldn’t He? God takes pleasure in creation. He is, in fact, the Master of creativity.

There are things that we are told are wrong for Christians to do. It is up to us to individually ask for the discernment to know what things truly are wrong and what things are not only permissible but actually beneficial to us. We must not let angry persons who act as if they, and not God, have the final word on everything we do make us slaves to fear. Ask God to help you test the spirits of men like these and always remember that we are called to legitimate freedom as sons and daughters of God, not to slavery to the narrow and bitter legalism of men.