Desperately Seeking Legalism

When our family lived in Abilene, Texas, God blessed us with a great church family and incredible small group made up of couples from the church. We were blessed to be a part of this family.

The preacher at that church was someone named Mike Cope. He is a gifted sharer of God's word. He is also a Bible professor at the university where Bronwyn will attend.

Yesterday on his blog (www.preachermike.com) he shared the following thoughts:

Here’s a pastoral observation from over a quarter of a century in ministry: people are desperately longing for legalism.

Once you get a taste of it, you will do almost anything to find more. It’s maybe the ultimate addiction.

Legalism comes with secure boundaries, clear authority, cleanliness, and disgust. It vacillates between pride and self-condemnation. It produces a kind of guilty depression that is itself addictive.

Ok, let me be clear. We think we don’t want legalism. We think we want grace. So, we dumb down the idea of grace — the robust, gospel-shaped kind would scare us to death! — into a sort of Grace Lite. We convince ourselves that because we have more “freedom of the Spirit” or more “freedom in worship” we have left legalism for grace.

Hardly.

Legalism beckons us. It makes us plead for more authority — from husband, from father, from church leaders. We want structure . . . we want to be told what to do . . . we want to fall in line.

Our need for legalism is so great we’ll break family ties to keep it (all the while priding ourselves on our freedom). We want the rules; we want the structure; we beg for order.

One of the challenges of ministry is helping legalism addicts. They flit about from place to place, but they can’t “rest” until they find it. It helps explain the popularity of some religious cult heroes — whether wackos or well-coiffed preachers — who will speak with authority and with confidence that they are absolutely right.

We say we want grace. But most don’t. Real grace — God’s grace! — is radical, unfair, against-the-grain. It messes with our addiction.