Formulas and Faith

Over twenty-five years into my walk of faith, I've had a realization that the thing I most dread ever becoming or most regret that I may have ever been is a formulaic Christian. A+B=C. Just combine this (A)ttitude with this (B)ehavior, and you are in the (C)lub, you can call yourself a (C)hristian. The cruel caveat is that whichever formula you determine to apply will only work within a specific group.

And while it will certainly help you qualify for one community, you'll be instantly disqualified for another. The group for which you qualify will pat you on the back, while the groups for which you don't will condescendingly try to "convert" you, talk about the falsity of your faith behind your back or refuse your company altogether. What a farse!

I'm not proud to admit it, but I've bought into my share of formulas. I've relished being "in" with those that agreed with my formula, and I've judged anyone who was "out." There was a time when I frowned upon a lot of evangelicals for their lists of don'ts without being willing to recognize that some traditionalists just replace the don'ts with dos and in either case, faith can become nothing more than a game with strict rules.

Sadly, it doesn't stop with the concrete lines dividing denominations. There are innumerable sub-groups of Christians who make up their own additional codes of conduct to define being an authentic Christian, and these are unmercifully enforced.

It's disturbing, destructive and disheartening.

In any form, legalism usurps God and seeks to set a man-standard of how to get to God and who is right with Him.

Whether it's based on decided good things people should do or declared bad things they should refrain from doing, the whole point it to exclude and condemn those who fall outside the designated parameters.

It decrees that God only loves those who measure up to set forth criteria and all others are knowingly or unknowingly condemned. And generally, those in one group believe those outside their group deserve such judgment.

Have we lost our minds? No. I think our minds work all too well. I think we have lost our hearts.

Why do we continue to make and adhere to lists and formulas? Traumatically slicing and dicing ourselves and others with a cookie-cutter approach to faith is not Christianity. It's not even living.

" . . . incessant and exclusive moralizing reduces the Good News to a tedious behavioral code, a rigid ethic, or an altruistic philosophy of life" (Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust)

It's robotic religion, not freedom in faith. There's no awe, no wonder, no open space to receive and relish life as it is given. There's not even air to breathe.

"Any attempt to measure the value of our lives by comparison and contrast to others belittles our gifts and dishonors God by our ungratefulness. As an old black preacher on a red-clay road in Georgia instructed a pilgrim, 'Be who you is, 'cause if you ain't who you is, you is who you ain't'" (Manning). And that's an utterly suffocating place to be.

But while legalism is a self-constructed prison, there is a door to freedom:

"Guard and keep yourselves in the love of God; expect and patiently wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ [which will bring you] unto life eternal" (Jude 1:21, AMP).

And as you open your heart and your life and you take in deep the fresh air . . . be ready for those who will not understand and will not let you easily embrace your freedom . . .

"Refute [so as to convict] some who dispute with you, and on some have mercy" as you have been shown "who waver and doubt" (Jude 1:22). For they live in timidity and trembling who continue to bear any weight of earning the eternal blessing and favor of God which by trust alone in Christ can be received.