Legalism and Freedom

Legalism is all about rule-following, especially in a religious sense. The undertone of the idea is, the more rules you can follow, and the harder it is to follow them, the better "Christian" you are, and the more "religious" you are (well, I can't argue that last one, actually, but just being "religious" is never a good thing).

But think about this: Christianity as a whole, the entire concept of being a Jesus-follower, is based on the Bible.

Here's a direct quote from the Bible, from the Man we all claim to follow religiously: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

Now, although a lot of people (including Christians) seem to think that Christians aren't supposed to use their brains, I assure you I've thought a lot about this. I've turned that statement on its head, inside out, and run it backwards... and you know what I've figured out?

That the converse of it is also true: If a certain belief or opinion isn't setting you free, then guess what?

It ain't the truth!

Jesus wants His people to enjoy the freedoms that He died to give us: freedom from sin, freedom from bondage to anything or anyone but Him (and he has even told us that the "burden" of following Him is easy, and the "yoke" he puts on us is light), freedom from being bound by the letter of the law. He even tells us not to allow ourselves to be bound up by the laws of others (government excepted)!

So can someone tell me WHY some people consider it their bounden duty to try and make other people follow their personal convictions as if they were laws? We're not bound to follow man-made rules--we're meant to follow Jesus alone.

To do anything else is unscriptural... just as unscriptural as their trying to impose their rules on us in the first place.

That Offensive "S" - word

Tell any intelligent, modern, non-Christian woman that if she accepts Christ she will have to start submitting to her husband, and she will very indignantly tell you where to stick your "submission." Crumpled up so it's all corners first, just exactly how far in, and sideways.

And very rightfully so.

Being an intelligent, modern, Christian woman, the daughter of teachers, I must confess that I had a similar reaction. Then after getting involved with a certain extremely conservative message board, I came under "conviction" that I'd been all wrongheaded about it, and began "submitting" to Grey the way they told me I should have all along. Don't get me wrong; I wasn't a slave, and I was still free with my opinions and all, but I began leaving the final decision-making up to him the way the church told me I should. (Note: this is a classic example of "false conviction," which is that state in which you're hearing nothing about the issue from the Holy Spirit, but plenty about it from people who speak with enough authority that you start to wonder if they're right. They almost never are!)

Well, he hated it. The pressure started building up more and more in him, until finally he blew up like Mt. Vesuvias (and if you know Grey, you know he is NOT usually an angry or violent fellow) and demanded that I STOP submitting to him. He wanted his wife back, the equal partner he had married.

Feeling like he was asking me to go against the Bible, I tentatively started speaking up more, making more decisions, that sort of thing... and I also began researching the submission issue on my own. The more I delved into it, the more I realized that I'd been sold a bill of goods by the church. Submission means nothing like what I'd been taught: it isn't subjection, obedience, or anything that even implies bowing to authority. Here's what I came up with:

The Greek word for "submission" in the Ephesians 5 passage is "hupotasso," and it has two meanings. One of them is military, and it means "to arrange [troop divisions] in a military fashion under the command of a leader". Yes, I know this does sound like obeying authority, but hear me out. The other meaning of "hupotasso" is a non-military one, and it means: "a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden".

You show me the couple whose marriage is based in the military, and I'll show you an unhealthy marriage. I think it's safe to assume that we can go with the non-military meaning here, given above: which, if you think about it, sounds like a recipe for a very healthy marriage instead of one based in the concepts of commands and obedience.

It gets better. You'll notice it mentions "assuming responsibility," doesn't it? This tells me that submission has much more of a connotation of helping by shouldering part of the load than it does of accepting someone else's commands. Assuming responsibility is something a leader does, is it not? And yet, that's one of the definitions of "hupotasso." So, Biblically speaking, wives are to "submit," among other ways, by leading and assuming responsibility.

Hmmm. Doesn't sound much like obedience or subjection to me. But hey, don't take my word for it: one of the Greek lexicons I used to look this up is located here. Feel free to check it out for yourself.

And just for fun, after I worked out the whole "submission" gig, I wondered hey, what about the passage that says the husband is head of the wife? What's up with that, if we're not talking about an authoritarian relationship? Here's what I found out about that:

The Greek word used there for "head" is "kephale." I checked it with a secular Greek-English lexicon and discovered something surprising. In all the different contexts of the word's use, nowhere does it come across as "leader" or "authority." Some definitions were: crown, completion, consummation, sum, total, head of man or beast, generally, top, brim of a vessel, source of a river, mouth; generally, source, origin, starting-point. (These ones were especially interesting in light of the fact that Adam was the "source" of Eve in a very literal sense: God made her out of his body.)

Most of these definitions apply to Christ's relationship with the church, but not a single one of them implies authority. I especially like the ones that mention crown, completion, and sum total; if this is what the husband is to be toward the wife, then that goes along very nicely with 1 Cr. 11:6, which says that the woman is the "glory" of the man. One of the definitions of "glory" here is "a most glorious condition, most exalted state," and another is "magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity, grace."

That sounds like another fine example of Greek parallelism, saying the same thing in different words. The husband is the consummation of the wife, and the wife is the exalted state of her husband.

Here is an excellent site that explains this concept much more fully, and also goes more deeply into the Greek literary technique of parallel writing. Very interesting reading, it is! Now that I'm learning more about the scriptures in their original languages, I'm discovering all sorts of nasty little secrets that the translators have kept to themselves over the years, that the church has taught as doctrine for centuries.

Feminists and the Church

In recent years, there is a huge schism between feminists and the church. Christians who believe in equal rights and respect for women are afraid to call themselves "feminists" because of hate-spewing bigots like Andrea Dworkin who literally gave feminism a bad name... and feminists who believe and worship Jesus are afraid to call themselves Christians because of misogynistic (and racist) bigots like Bob Jones and his ilk.

But in the roots of feminism, there were very close ties with the Christian community; in fact, the Salvation Army was especially active in promoting women's rights (and many of the first-wave feminists were active in the church as well). It seems that the first-wave feminists and the church of a hundred years ago were both a lot more enlightened than we are today.

Modern feminists, however, hate Christianity because it's so "patriarchal." The reason it is patriarchal is that there have been centuries' worth of wrong teachings concerning certain passages mostly penned by St. Paul. Women being silent in the church and not usurping authority over a man -- that was a directive for one particular church that was having a problem with the women shouting questions to their husbands (men and women didn't sit together), having them answered (loudly) by other women who didn't know any better than they, and just generally being disruptive. Women submitting to their husbands was essentially the same thing that husbands were being asked to do for their wives. Yet people have misinterpreted these passages for hundreds of years and used them to essentially enslave women through spiritual abuse.

What's happening, though, is that even in this modern age, churches are still preaching these mistaken views of women -- and it's proving a real hindrance to the educated, modern, thinking woman who doesn't know Christ.

Don't get me wrong -- many churches and pastors will spout the party line of Galatians 3:28. They'll say that men and women are equal in Christ, but that God has given them different "roles" -- to men, a leadership role, and to women, a subordinate, helping role. Umm... correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't sound too equal to me... or if it does, it's only equality in the Orwellian sense.

So when Christians start to witness to feminists, they have to be aware that feminists are even less likely to like Christianity because once the church starts telling them how equal they are in Christ -- "You're equal, but you've gotta submit to your husband. No, he doesn't have to submit to you; it's a one-way street -- but don't worry! You're really equal!" -- they're not gonna go for it.

They're not going to listen to anything that has to do with how "sacrificial" the husband's love is; they're going to hear "he gets to make the decisions," and "you have to do what he says." Not only that, but many churches would also say, "Oh, you're equal to men in Christ -- but you can't teach them anything; your ministry is limited to women and children. Maybe boy children if we're feeling magnanimous. But don't worry-- you're really equal!"

Might as well be sitting around chanting "Two legs, bad! Four legs good!" and "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

Orwellian church? I'll pass, thanks.

Missionaries and Respect for the Native Culture

I found this comment on another blog, and it struck home for me. The commenter, Egana, said: If we were missionaries in a foreign culture, we would be very careful to learn the ins and outs of that culture for the sake of our representation of Christ to them. So how does one reconcile Biblical mandates and cultural expectations in ones own native culture, for the sake of the gospel?

If foreign missionaries go to school, classes, and have intensive, in-depth studies on how to relate to whatever culture they're going into -- and how best to introduce the gospel in that particular culture -- then why, oh, why, don't home missionaries have the same thing?

Considering that every single one of us is a missionary either home or abroad, we really must find a way to talk about Jesus without making the surrounding culture hate us. If missionaries have to make cultural adjustments abroad, then we should have to make them at home as well. What is the very best way in the world to share the gospel with other people? The way that Jesus Himself used: through relationships and friendships. We can't be afraid to make friends with the unbelievers, the way so many Christians are. Jesus wasn't afraid to. Why are we?

Also, foreign missionaries don't push their beliefs onto the natives. Why do we? They don't picket in front of the foreign city halls for the land to change its laws -- they know they are the foreigners, the guests, of that country. So are we, as believers in Christ. They work through befriending others and gradually introducing those people to Christ through their own examples and their own lives. So should we. They don't have smear campaigns complaining about the leaders of those countries; neither should we. They work, within their own circle of people, to change hearts through loving others. So should we.

I'm not saying that Christians shoudn't be involved with politics. I'm saying that in the USA, our involvement is all wrong. What good does it do to picket in front of an abortion clinic -- all it does is make people mad. Is that what we want them to think about people who follow Christ? It does far more good to actually befriend the young, unwed mothers; that way, not only do they actually get to see the love of Christ instead of seeing a bunch of self-righteous Christians yelling hateful things at them, but you also get a chance to offer them other solutions (Crisis Pregnancy Center, anyone?) that they may not be able to find on their own.

Why do so many pastors preach sermons on how much God hates homosexuality? News flash: God hates ALL sin. Luckily for us, he loves all the sinners, up to and yes, even including, the homosexuals. What good does it do to tell a homosexual that s/he's a sinner? Unless it's in the context of everyone being a sinner, and that everyone struggles with sin, but that God can save us from its ultimate consequences -- it does no good, and lately gets you called homophobic. It does a heck of a lot more good to actually befriend the gay people; get to know them, and demonstrate God's love for them; that way, not only can you justly and scornfully refute charges of hate speech, but also disproves the "homophobic" accusation. And even if they never come to Christ, you'll have made some good friends.

When I was growing up, I used to hear the catchphrase all the time: "Christianity isn't a religion; it's a relationship." Unfortunately, I did not see that relationship demonstrated very much as I was growing up. And now that I have grown up, I have come to realize that, alas, the Christianity that most of us are familiar with is a religion, and that there is far too little relationship of any sort involved with it.

Truly following Christ has nothing of the religion aspect to it. Truly followng Christ is ALL about relationships: us with God, and us with other people.

If you are not loving others, befriending them, getting to know them, and helping them "bear their burdens," then you're not really witnessing. And if you're not showing respect for the culture that you're a missionary in -- even if it's your own! -- then you're probably just turning people off.

They Day They Canceled Church

I was talking about this topic with Grey again (strangely enough, it tends to come up on a weekly basis...) and we both agreed that our absolute favorite church service EVER was one time a couple years ago when we got a blizzard and "regular" church was canceled.

There were some who live in the building, and some like us who hadn't gotten the phone call about its being canceled, so maybe 17 or 20 people showed up. And stayed. And it was CHURCH, I'm telling you.

Someone had put on some praise music in the sanctuary, and there were a few people in there singing along and worshipping through music and dance (people who wouldn't dare to dance in front of everyone else). One person sang a solo for whoever was there to listen. There were three or four sitting off in a corner praying together. There were several out in the lobby, just chit-chatting.

That's where I was, and that morning I got to know one of the most amazing women in the whole church -- and she's kind of intimidating, so I would probably never have spoken to her on a regular Sunday morning. Some of the guys got to talking, and when one mentioned a repair problem that he'd been having, a couple others went off with him right then to help him fix it. Grey hung around chatting with us for a while, and went off with our son for a while, and then came back and sort of flitted from one group to another. Our son had a blast; he appointed himself unofficial babysitter for one of the other younger ones (he was only 5 himself), and kept reporting to the baby's mother what the baby was doing. Usually the two kids would have been in different classes (age-segregated), but that morning they both really enjoyed playing together.

Some of the folks in the lobby were talking about lighthearted stuff, and another little knot of people were doing Bible research into a point of doctrine that they were discussing.

It was all completely unstructured, no one was in charge, and we were all there worshipping and fellowshipping together. No one had to shush the kids, no one had to do any lesson plans or come up with a sermon, and people could come and go as it suited them.

As I recall, my antisocial husband and I ended up staying far longer than we've ever stayed for a church service before. He's usually one of those "first out the door" kind of guys. And when we left, we felt this sense of total spiritual satisfaction that I don't think we've ever been able to attain since then.

I swear, I would LOVE going to church if they would only cancel it every week!

The "Covering" Doctrine of Authority

Our church is big into the concept of "covering." We wanted to offer a Crown Financial Ministries small group study to our fellow parishioners a year ago, but when I broached the topic to the pastor's wife (who is in charge of the majority of the ministries there), she took control of the idea. I had been thinking to meet in our home, but she said no, they'd rather have it there in the church meetingroom so they could have it under their "covering." They didn't want to use Crown materials, but instead use "HomeBuilder" materials instead, which apparently has a financial piece to it. She did offer us the chance to lead the finances class, but only in their building and using their stuff, and she specifically said it was so that we could be under their "covering." (Never once did she ask to see the Crown materials that we already had -- it was their way or the highway, it seemed.)

Last summer they did a whole big video series, 3 months' worth, called "Under Cover" by John Bevere. The whole point of it was all about respecting the authority which God has placed over you -- which is all right and good -- but then he said that the church (read: pastor) is the principle authority that God has placed over you.

He said that pastors should be obeyed; the example our pastor came up with was that if he asked all the men to wear Hawaiian shirts to church on Sundays, and they didn't have a spiritual, Biblical reason not to, then they should all wear them. Because he, the pastor, was placed in authority over us, and we owed him our respect and to a certain extent, our obedience.

To me, that smacks of cultism, to be quite honest.

Whatever happened to God's being our authority?

Another thing: I know several pastors and their wives in real life, and they all say that they can't have real, deep, open friendships with people in their congregation. They can't "confess their sins one to another" unless the "one another" is a bunch of other pastors. Why not? Because it undermines their authority for people to think that their pastor struggles with the same sins they do. This is a perfect example of "authority" coming between people. In order to keep their authority, they must show a different face to their congregation than they do to their group of pastor-friends. When they should be concentrating on building relationships (loving your neighbor as yourself), they concentrate on saving face.

People call pastors "shepherds" and the congregation "sheep." But really, isn't the pastor just another sheep and Jesus is the Shepherd? You can't have equality between people when one of them is constantly set up above the other as a spiritual authority. It's one thing if they take turns: If I go to another congregant and ask for counsel, then for that moment she has spiritual authority over me... but at the same time we're still peers, in that I can choose whether to follow her advice or not. AND by the end of the conversation we're back to being peers again. And then she might need counsel from me.

If I go to the pastor for counsel, I go as a supplicant, someone who is constantly "lower" than he is. His advice has the ring of authority to it, and there's usually a strong undercurrent of "you must do *this* to be in the will of God," where the peer would more likely say "you must pray and figure out for yourself how to be in the will of God." And after my counseling session with the pastor, he's still the one in authority over me, and I'm still the supplicant. There's no equality there. He's never going to ask advice from me. There's no submitting one to another there, as Ephesians 5 directs us to do.

Now, a huge part of the church idea of "covering" is also protection, as I mentioned already -- specifically in this case, protection from spiritual error. Yes, the pastor's word will carry the ring of authority, because he wants me to follow his advice and wants to protect me from error...

But isn't it the Holy Spirit's job to protect us from error? And if I have this man, even as a pastor, as a "covering" -- an intermediary between me and God -- it seems as if he is trying to do too much. He's trying to do God's job. If God wants to teach me something that our pastor's ordaining denomination does not believe, then the pastor would actually be protecting me FROM GOD, wouldn't he? (And yes, there are a few issues where I suspect this is the case)

I do agree that we need teachers of the scriptures, yes. But do we need one person who is constantly in authority over us, who can't allow himself to be real with us, and who essentially comes between us and God? Whether it's authority, protection, or whatever, his "umbrella" is still between us and God.

The more I think about it, the more the concept of "covering" seems like

a) control, as in wanting to keep control of the congregation and what is taught and all, and...

b) fear and lack of trust in God -- that God won't be able to correct any possible errors that may crop up.

I see it at our church -- our pastor and his wife are very, very busy people, because they have so many ministries going on. However, they don't delegate as much as they should, because they want to stay in control of what's going on -- and they call it keeping us under their "covering."

Disclaimer: No, I'm not bashing pastors in any way; I know they work hard and can get burned out and most of them do a great job. I'm just complaining about the concept of "covering" that some of them teach. All too often I've heard people use that word when it really meant "control."

(The Baptist church I grew up in called it "male leadership" and was a lot more subtle about it... but there still weren't any women heading up any church ministries.)

It seems as if I am embarking on wilderness journey here, questioning things I've been taught by one church or another. The doctrine of "covering" just strikes me as wrong, in the sense that I've been taught by our pastor and his wife. It's like saying that Jesus' sacrifice wasn't enough; we still need go-betweens, between us and Jesus.

And here I thought the curtain of the holiest of holies had been torn all down the middle -- it really seems as though the "covering" people want to sew it back up again. Whether the covering is supposed to be the husband, for a woman, or the church/pastor/elders, for the husband -- they still get between us and Jesus.

I've also heard it taught (I think I've mentioned this before) that they view it as protection, to help protect you spiritually from demons, from false doctrine, etc. Well, for many many people what it actually protects them from is directly experiencing God's grace and presence!

I have the Holy Spirit inside, to protect me from false doctrine... I have the authority of Jesus' blood to protect me from demons (and again, the Holy Spirit to help with discerning them)... and I don't need anything getting in the way of my access to God.

Covering is starting to sound like a euphemism for "control" to me.

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure the Holy spirit should be the only one in control.

I Have Ceased Being a Regular Churchgoer

This isn't a blog full of complaints about my church, because in all honesty I don't think that particular church, or pastor, or whatever is the problem. It's more that I've pretty much had it with the traditional "sing a while, have announcements, sing some more, have a testimony, sing some more and take the offering, and then sit down and listen to a 40 minute sermon about things that have nothing to do with what you face on a daily basis" angle of church. Where's the participation? Where's the connection? Where's the interaction, the sharing, the serving that the New Testament talks about?

We haven't stopped attending completely; we make it maybe every 3rd week or so. But it's more and more of a chore, and it's just basically so we can squeeze in a few minutes with our friends that we don't get to see during the week. And a new church is not the answer. In talking about it we don't think changing churches is going to help. Grey mentioned elsewhere that the traditional church in the pointy building just isn't working for us anymore. And our church meetingplace isn't even pointy! Mind you, they want to build a pointy one, which is part of the reason we're not happy there. When a church gets big enough to need another building, it is NOT time to build a bigger building. It's time to plant a new church! Honestly, I think it's more a point of pride with pastors, to have a bigger church, than it is a thing of them being better able to serve their congregation. Pride and control -- I've seen that in almost every church I've been in. There may be a possible exception with our current one -- I don't know if our pastor is prideful or a control freak (though I know his wife is) -- but if not, he's definitely misguided.

And when's the last time you pointed out a doctrinal error to a church pastor and he changed his mind? Nope. Doesn't happen. For the most part, they believe in whatever they were taught at Bible college, and if you disagree it's because you have it wrong. There are some who will listen to you and study it out for themselves (the pastor of the small non-denom we attended for a year, for example -- he ended up disagreeing with me, but I deeply respect the fact that he studied it for himself. He did end up in a different place from where he had begun, at any rate!). But mostly they'll just tune you out. Listening means they have to think, and most people don't seem to like to think for themselves whether they pastor a church or not.

Then again, I've also been thinking and reading about how un-Biblical the position of pastor is, too -- at least, the idea of "pastor" that we have: the man who leads the church and who preaches every week. Show me that in scripture, eh? And then tell me where it says the pastor is any more important to the function of a church body than the prophet, or the teacher, or the helper? But that's another blog for another time.

Some friends have mentioned the house-church idea, and honestly I think I'm leaning in that direction -- but there again, how do you track down a group of people who only know about it by word-of-mouth? And more to the point, how do you know it's not one of those creepy cultish groups that wears headcoverings and don't allow the women to speak? Or that worship Michael Pearl, or that think it's somehow holier to follow Old Testament Laws? (Hm, I wonder just how many of them keep a "menstrual tent" for their women?)

(Or maybe they just WISH they did!)

After the disappointment of my aunt's JW "memorial service" (which was about 3 minutes of the minister talking about her, and about 42 minutes of him explaining JW doctrine about death), I reached a real low point with religion. Basically, I've had it with religion. I don't want it anymore. I want a Mike Yaconelli-style "Messy spirituality," that isn't bogged down with what other people think about religion. I want Jesus, but I want Jesus without all the religious crap.

I want to be Jesus to people, to the best of my ability, and if that means never darkening the door of a pointy building again, then I'm all over it.

Seems like frequently, the traditional "church" does more harm than good these days anyway. We have to figure out a way to relate to the "unchurched" people -- like Jesus did! -- or else we're going to be useless in the new century. Worse than useless -- damaging.

If anyone's interested, here are some book recommendations that'll give you an inkling where I'm coming from:
Messy Spirituality
Who is Your Covering? A Fresh Look at Leadership, Authority, and Accountability
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Church
So You Don't Want to go to Church Anymore

Happy reading!