Definition For Pharisees

Pilgrimage Day 6: Walking home to a different Christ

I have arrived in Daventry, the town I grew up, the town in which I became a Christian, and later became a homophobe.

I made the mistake of thinking I knew the area well enough not to consult the map too often. But I came off the canal towpath too soon, spending the second half of my walk along the side of an A-road that temporarily dampened my spirits in the same way that they had been lifted by the friendliness of people around the canal. Eventually, I arrived at my mother’s house, where I’m staying tonight. I’ve already enjoyed her good and familiar cooking.

I often to come to Daventry to visit my mother, my sister, brother-in-law, nephew and niece, but my visit today seemed to bring up far more memories. This was partly because of its significance as part of my pilgrimage of repentance and partly because of the angle I entered Daventry from. I walked through the Grange – the council estate where I grew up – and passed several places I hadn’t seen for years. I was living on the Grange when I became a Christian in my late teens.

In some ways, I had a rather strange sense of coming home, both physically and mentally. I became a Christian because of a wonderfully liberating, empowering, challenging and uplifting encounter with Christ. I felt that God was calling me to engage more fully with my thoughts and experiences and to seek to live up to the challenge of following the teachings of Jesus and the spirit of Christ within.

Joining a church was also a very positive experience, but over time I accepted the church’s opposition to same-sex relationships and then got involved in more extremist forms of Christianity (mostly outside that church) that bordered on fundamentalism.

It is sometimes assumed that the more 'conservative' interpretations of a religion are by definition the most authentic forms of it. This is ridiculous. Fundamentalism is essentially a modern idea, as religious groups have reacted to the diversity of faiths and cultures by insisting that no religion or worldview other than their own contains even an element of truth. As a teenager, I accepted the literal interpretation of six-day creation and denied the reality of evolution.

I didn’t realise then that literal creationism is a fairly recent idea. Prior to the Enlightenment, people routinely understood that something could convey truth without being literal fact. Rationalism and modern science changed this understanding. Fundamentalists who insist that the world was literally created in six days are thus buying into the very rationalism that they see themselves as opposing.

Our Legalistic Definition of Legalism – Understanding the Semi ...

As Sinclair Ferguson once pointed out, the Pharisees were not Pelagians. They did not believe they were saved by unaided good works. They were, rather semi-Pelagians --the God helps those who help themselves crowd. Want proof? What does Jesus' parable Pharisee say? Lord, I thank you that I am not like other men are..." He credits God, then credits himself. How savvy of him. God made him who he was. It was God who spared him from being like that publican. There, but for the grace of God, go I. I know better. I obey, by the grace of God. You don't... In short, legalism is robbing people of the joy of relationship with God by the imposing of rules. Rules that take Scripture's grand principles and convert them into minute expectations. Rules that convince me that I am doing a better job at living this Christian life than you are. Rules that show me how good I am, and, incidentally, how bad you are. Legalists did not so much add to Scripture whole new lists of requirements as they did take the spare Law of God and codify it into a bazillion provisos, caveats, whereases and heretofores. We can grant that they did it with the best of intentions --they were serious about obedience to God. They were so serious they couldn't keep their own rules, so they made loopholes to ease the burden of them. Conservative evangelicalism of the Reformed type seems rife with these sorts of well-intentioned unwritten rules. Rules about education, about holidays, about childrearing, etc., etc. Often we confuse the wise choices with the iron-clad right choices. We deny mitigating circumstances; we deny Christian liberty. We substitute legislation for counsel. Wisdom, however, takes into account mitigating circumstances --that there is not always one "right" answer, for everyone at all times, about all matters. Wisdom skillfully takes God's truth and applies it to one's own life. Let me give you an example. My children go to public school. At one time, I thought I would never send my children to public school. I knew there were good Christian teachers in public schools, but I wanted my children in fine Christian schools or home schooled. God gave us an eldest daughter with special needs. Christian schools can't meet all her needs. In our judgment, at this point in her life, home school couldn't meet all her needs. Public schools here aren't hostile to Christianity. God broke my legalism about public school, and it has been a blessing.

Judaism in late antiquity

One thousand gems

A myth of innocence, Mark and Christian origins

Thank God I'm Not a Pharisee...or Am I?

Justification and Variegated Nomism: The complexities of Second Temple Judaism