legalism and other millstones...

Someone sent me this little news item a few days ago. Over the weekend, the young man in question did indeed take his girlfriend to her senior prom. With predictable results.  

Based on commentary seen in various locations around the 'net, it's pretty obvious that there are, naturally, a lot of people out there making assumptions that this is representative of Bible believing Christians as a whole. Erm...no....it is not.  I am just as appalled as the unbelievers are at this. Maybe more.

I somehow managed to miss most of the lunatic fringe of the Christian world.  Good thing, too. 

A lot of the people I know of that had close encounters with such either have left the church world entirely or have embraced such a convoluted version of the Christian faith that it is scarcely recognizable as orthodoxy any longer.  I think this may be what is behind a fair number of those in the emerging church. Although I don't want this post to become a springboard for discussion on that particular topic. Some other time, maybe. 

There was this kid when I was in college that would camp out in the dorm lounge and preach at whatever hapless individual happened to unknowingly strike up a conversation with him. One of his favorite topics was the particular ways in which various secular musical acts were evil to be avoided. Now I am not going to say that there might not have been issues with some of these artists that might bear looking at from a believer's standpoint, but do you really think that this guy made his captive audience want to run off to church??? Maybe run off in the opposite direction is more like it.  My husband has a relative who has stated that the Christian cannot expect regenerate behavior from unregenerate individuals. How true that is. What can be gained by smugly telling unbelievers that the talented musicians that they enjoy are evil poison?? Really, there has to be a better way.

 My husband attended a Christian college associated with a particularly legalistic denomination.  Among the activities that could get one expelled were movies (any movies; it could be Disney for all they cared: the point is it was a movie. A worldly movie) and something quaintly referred to as "mixed bathing". What might "mixed bathing" be, you ask??? Well, it is simply the very sinfulness of males and females being in proximity to each other during the act of swimming. It's not that swimming itself is sinful. It's just that one should never compromise oneself by being in a situation where (gulp!!) one might be swimming in the presence of the opposite gender. The college was a block from the beach. And last time I checked, the US does not have gender segregated beaches. Needless to say, there sure was a lot of clandestine beach action. Not to mention movie action. It was always said that you could pick out the kids from College X at the local cinema, because they were the ones scrunched down in their seats looking furtively around to make sure that they weren't being watched. 

Yet another example from my own personal archives involves a gentleman who is now on staff at our church and a Christian counselor. He and his wife attended a very conservative Bible college somewhere in the Midwest.  One fine day, the school leadership decided that it would be a good time to encourage the students to rid their lives of non sanctified music. The bins went out to be filled with contraband CDs. Well, my friend and his wife went around and picked some mighty good stuff out of those bins after every else was done with the purge!!! I would say this man walks closely with God today; his new improved music collection sure didn't prevent him from being mightily used by God in ministry to others. Including my own family. 

What does all of this silliness teach people about the kingdom of God??? From my casual observations, it results in a lot of people trying to push the envelope as far as they can. What it does NOT result in is any real sense of discernment about what is genuinely harmful to living the Christian life. It appears to create a hunger for anything that has been labeled forbidden fruit; sometimes the more outrageous, the better.  I have talked to many other people who have made the same set of observations. 

So what of this kid in Ohio, now??? Do you think that he has learned the lesson that the school authorities have hoped that he will learn? Or do you think that as he goes out and experiences the world and finds so many things that his isolationist Christian school proclaimed as "bad" to not really be so; that perhaps he will throw the baby out with the bathwater???  I would say it would not be a huge surprise if young Tyler Frost not only rejects the Christian faith altogether, but also wholeheartedly embraces all manner of sin as good, since instead of being trained to discern, he was simply trained to avoid an awful lot of things by guilt through association. Sad. Very sad.  And tragic, in the eyes of God. 

I'll leave you with this very sobering thought: Marilyn Manson (nee Brian Warner) was raised in this very type of quasi Christian environment. In his particular case, false teaching about the end times greatly contributed as well, to his concluding that the Christianity of his youth was a sham.  It is so important for the future of our Christian young people to teach them the truth, the whole truth and nothing BUT the truth. When the gospel is burdened by the heaviness of legalism, it does not bring people closer to God; it drives them away. Scary. 

There is a Bible verse that is most fitting to this situation:

Luke 17:2

"It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin."

Remember that one.