Dear Americans

I'm sure this is something you'd like to be aware of.

Law-Lovers

Christians have a tendency to believe that living a holy life means strict adherence to a brace of rules hosted by their local denomination, affiliation, or tradition. The psychological pressure exerted by sincere believers on themselves and others to, say, not dance, avoid secular music, stay clear of bars and pubs, refuse communion with other traditions, be pacifists, make regular Sunday attendence, etc. must crush the joy of a hopeful heart. Who could enjoy the freedom of Christ just knowing that your local congregation and its many para-church connections act as an implicit spiritual gestapo? Be sure to clear the salt stains from your shoes because if you don't Mrs. X will complain to the pastor about how distracting it is for her and others to receive the Body of Christ from a man who has salt stains on his shoes (actual example).

Christians love law. We love making laws. We love imposing law on others, arguing about laws, canonizing law, interpreting Christ's words through a lense of law, basing entire affiliations on a select group of lifestyle preferences as if they were laws (e.g., Brethren In Christ and the law of pacifism), and we certainly have this cockeyed notion that a pastor/priest/bishop represents the law (though we prattle on with titular sentiments like, "representative of Christ", even though we treat him as the man weilding the stone tablets of the denominational constitution; not to be crossed but only submitted to).

But what is the good of being a Christian if it means bunging up your soul with imitations of Old Testament practice all the while professing New Testament grace? Why live under Moses and sing about Christ? Why parade about in the light of the Pharisees while drawing a curtain over the Son?

There seem to be no real and decent answers to any of these questions. It is one thing to admonish fellow believers to consider their leaders and imitate their way of life (Heb. 13:7). It is an entirely different thing to constrain fellow believers to preferentialisms and surplus moralisms in an effort to force conformity to a leader's way of life; in effect, to mass-market Percy Byshe Shelly's terrifying vision of a doppleganger, all-the-while ordaining it as 'holy' and proper.

Rather, where Christ is, there is freedom. Where grace reigns, legalisms are unnecessary. Where the conscience of the believer is discipled to Christ through His Word and continuous prayer, moralizing becomes the providence of cheap grace and the spiritually inept.