Category: Legalism

Particular Pitfalls of Independent Baptists: Performance-Based Sanctification

~ Bob Hayton ~ 5 Comments

This series of posts focuses on several pitfalls that especially plague Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) churches. These pitfalls are wide enough to catch people of a variety of stripes, but fundamentalist Christians tend to be especially prone to these errors. Having disentangled myself from some of these very errors, I aim to lovingly warn people of the dangers associated with this way of thinking.

We looked at legalism, in the first post in this series. Today we will focus on performance-based sanctification.

Performance-based sanctification is a particular form of legalism. I have quoted C.J. Mahaney on this topic before, but perhaps the following excerpt from blogger Terry Rayburn will best convey what I mean by “performance-based sanctification.”

If you think you’re performing pretty well at a particular time, then you think you are deserving God’s love and favor, and pride sets in. Even while you know that pride comes before a fall, right? And even while you know that God resists the proud, right?

But what if you think you’re performing poorly at a particular time? What if you have been deceived by the world, the flesh and the devil, and you find yourself doing what you don’t want to do, or not doing what you want to do, like Paul describes in Romans 7?

Well, then you feel like God doesn’t love you or favor you as much, if at all, and you despair, and you shy away from Him, which makes it even worse, because you need to be in close fellowship with Him to walk in the Spirit.

And so there’s this downward spiral. And God forbid that you just pull up your bootstraps, and “will” yourself to perform better so you can swing back to the proud side.

–excerpted from “The Harm of Performance-Based Christianity” by Terry Rayburn

Can you see the yo-yo swing there? Work hard, feel good; blow it and feel terrible. Where is the confidence in God’s grace in this model? The secret to living victoriously for Christ is gritting your teeth, doing more, and not doing the things you shouldn’t do. Try, try, try. Harder, harder, harder! Don’t quit. Keep going. We say that salvation is by grace, but growing in Christ is about the will power, the commitment and the determination.

This can lead to despair or a terrible form of pride. And it leads to class of spiritual elites. Those in the church who have the right know-how and ability to toe the line, those who have their externals together, they can feel like they are a superior bunch to the others who don’t spend hours each week on visitation, who don’t attend every service and say or do the right things in front of the right people. This can creep on silently, and people can do this without even realizing it. You are always thinking of this certain group of people who don’t seem to put up and do their fair share. And for their part, they seem to hang their heads appropriately and have resigned themselves to being sub-par and so serve menially or try to stick around for some benefit from the spiritually gifted leader class. And of course both classes can tend to view outsiders with suspicion. They aren’t us. They aren’t performing to the degree or on the particular points that we are. They must not be “sold out” to God, like we are.

Preachers can feed this mentality, heaping guilt on those who know they haven’t measured up. Calling for more sacrifice and greater devotion. Recommit your life to Christ, dedicate yourself again and everything will be fine. And they can promote an aura that says they are above this struggle to live for Christ. They have arrived and we, the peons, haven’t.

All of this focuses on self, and shifts the focus away from Christ. Instead of coming to him for grace, and “preaching the Gospel” to ourselves every day, we are encouraged to keep examining ourselves and just try harder. Instead of admitting that all Christians need the grace of Christ day by day, we assume that if we can just do more, we’ll arrive in this perfect place. We need to remind ourselves instead, that we are accepted by God because of Christ’s death for us and his perfect life lived on our behalf. Jesus died to save worthless sinners. We were not worthy of Christ’s death on our behalf before we were saved, and we are not worthy of His love and acceptance after we have trusted Him either. This point, that nothing we do can make us more valuable to God, is underscored in Jadon Lavik’s song “What If.”

I am reminded of an important quote from Tim Keller:

…the gospel is not just for non-Christians, but also for Christians. This means the gospel is not just the A-B-C’s but the A to Z of the Christian life. It is not accurate to think “the gospel” is what saves non-Christians, and then, what matures Christians is trying hard to live according to Biblical principles. It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our mind, heart, and life by believing the gospel more and more deeply as our life goes on.

If we think of the gospel as only pardon or forgiveness of sins, we will trust in God for our past salvation, but will trust in our own present strivings and attainments for our present relationship with God… the entire Christian life is a life lived (in a continual present progressive) by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20) …we must continually remind ourselves of our status as legally righteous, adopted children of God. [Source]

Don’t try harder in your Christian life. Focus on Jesus more. Bask in His love, and try to realize how truly amazing and dumbfounding is His grace. He shouldn’t love you, but He does! And nothing can change that. Holiness flows from true, sincere love for Christ. When we realize we are accepted in Christ, we will want to please him. This point is subtle but oh, so life-changing.

There are so many Scripture texts which teach this truth, that we need to have a Gospel-based sanctification model. One concept that helps is realizing that “salvation” in the New Testament, often refers to the final, ultimate salvation we experience in heaven (our glorification). We are saved – in this future sense, as much by grace as we are saved in the justification (present tense). It is all of grace. I’ll leave you with one Scripture text on living the Christian life in the same way we receive the Gospel, but I encourage you to check out my “The Gospel’s Work in Believers” series which expounds Scripture more on this point.

Colossians 2:6-7 KJV

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

We received Christ by faith, and that is how we must walk in him. We are built up in him, and the text goes on to say later that we are complete in him. We are accepted in Him. And that is how we live the Christian life – by faith in what Jesus has done. We walk by faith in what God says is true of us, and not by sight as to how we feel in our struggle to live lives worthy of Him. I hope this post can help some understand the peril of performance-based thinking.

Particular Pitfalls of Independent Baptists: Legalism

~ Bob Hayton ~ 28 Comments

Jack Schaap is not the first high profile pastor or church leader to fall into sin. I remember blogging about the fall of Ted Haggard, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, back in 2006. Roman Catholics have their fair share of priest-turned-pedophiles, and no church group has the luxury of having leaders with perfect hearts that aren’t susceptible to sin.

Independent Fundamental Baptists (IFB), however, are particularly liable to fall into this sin, it would seem. And I would say there are several pitfalls that especially plague IFBs. Many don’t see these pitfalls and end up getting used and abused by the system. And so I find the need to speak out and warn people, lovingly of what I consider to be errors in their way of thinking.

These pitfalls can be wide enough to catch people of a variety of stripes, but apply most directly to “old-fashioned” fundamental Baptists. There is a large group of IFB churches that are more or less similar in their susceptibility to the issues I want to discuss. I hope this conversation can focus on the Bible and on what it teaches about these pitfalls. And I do pray that some are helped by this.

The first pitfall I want do discuss is, legalism.

John Piper has defined legalism, as follows:

(1) Treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God’s favor…

(2) The erecting of specific requirements of conduct beyond the teaching of Scripture and making adherence to them the means by which a person is qualified for full participation in the local family of God, the church; This is where unbiblical exclusivism arises. [Source]

I think this is an excellent definition, but of course not everyone will be happy with it. Some are offended or confused by the use of the term “legalism” by people who critique fundamentalism. I want to elaborate on this further, using something I wrote a while ago. I can’t say everyone has a legalistic mentality in a given church–I speak for myself. But certain environments facilitate this mindset.

So why do I use the term “legalism?” Look at Piper’s definition a little more closely: “Treating biblical standards of conduct as regulations to be kept by our own power in order to earn God’s favor.” Piper has many personal rules of conduct that he keeps out of a desire to please God (he doesn’t own a TV, he doesn’t go to movies very often, he doesn’t drink, etc.). He does so, however, from love for God not a sense of rigorous duty. What’s important I think is “by our own power.” For years I was in a church that taught us to “just do it”. If we were really serious about God we would keep these rules and regulations, most of which went way beyond what was spelled out in Scripture. It was hard to toe the line, and we were encouraged to have character and resolve. Yes we were told to depend on the spirit, but the emphasis was on personal effort.

In keeping those rules we felt that we were truly obeying God. And when we saw others who didn’t keep those same rules, part of us, deep inside, thought we were better than them. We felt we were in a sense earning status with God. Our group was more serious about God than other groups. Why? Because we did this, and that. The emphasis was on us. And we didn’t truly have a perspective of God’s grace and a genuine love for all the brothers and sisters we have in Christ.

This is what Piper is arguing against. And while I often bristled against the term “legalism” too. After I came out of the system and thought more objectively, I realized that “legalism” really did fit. The focus was externals. Not that those aren’t important, but the very nature of the environment we were in promoted the idea of making sure we look good to others by keeping the community’s rules. Since we judged each other on externals so much, and since externals were harped on in the pulpit so often, it became natural to think this way. We were all, to one degree or another, earning favor and status with God. Yes the Gospel was preached but it was presented as a thing to accept mentally and assent to once, and after that you pay God back, in a sense, by keeping His rules. It was not really presented as something you can live by.

What is missing is that in our own strength we are sure to fall. The rules are hard. And when that was acknowledged we were encouraged to vow to do better, to clench our teeth and determine not to give up, to go forward and recommit ourselves to God during the public invitation. To seek accountability and force ourselves to do it. Often manipulative, human-oriented schemes were used to try to belittle those who didn’t persevere. It was a method to try to encourage them to keep on keeping on. In all of this a focus on Christ was lost. The Gospel is all about the fact we can’t keep God’s rules. We need help. And we have a glorious Savior. From the love He’s given me, and in light of the glorious grace of God giving me what I do not deserve, I can have a Spirit-wrought desire to please Him. With that motivation, the rules of what I do or don’t do, are not burdensome. They don’t even really matter. What matters is my love for Jesus and desire to please Him. If I fall, I know I have an advocate, and I am saddened since I displease Him. And I’m again amazed that He picks me up and helps me keep going.

I hope you can see how this “legalism” can be harmful. It can take our focus off of Christ and onto ourselves. And the 2nd kind of legalism points us to our neighbors. We assess whether they are qualified for me to even consider them part of our church. This is doubly harmful because the standards we’re measuring them by are not even entirely Biblical. They are more often a particular application of a Biblical principle.

I hope this helps explain where we are coming from. Terms like this are inflammatory I know. There’s not much we can do about that. But if you see where our objection is to this kind of thing, maybe it helps you understand why we label it “legalism ” and why we are against it.

I’d encourage you to check out C.J. Mahaney’s book The Cross-Centered Life, it has an excellent chapter on legalism. For more on the Biblical basis for this, see my series on the Gospel’s work in believers.

An IFB Pastor’s Ugly, UnChristian Comments on Homosexuality

~ Bob Hayton ~ 4 Comments

Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, NC caused a national uproar over his recent comments on homosexuality. I get the feeling that this news story is only going to get bigger.

Here’s a summary of his comments in a sermon on May 13, where he is reacting to President Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage:

I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers but I couldn’t get it pass the Congress – build a great big large fence, 50 or a hundred mile long. Put all the lesbians in there, fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. And have that fence electrified so they can’t get out.

And you know what? In a few years they will die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce. If a man ever has a young’un, praise God he will be the first.

–see the youtube video clip included in this article

The pastor is not backing down, and the next Sunday apparently, his congregation was in full attendance with 100 visitors and supporters from the surrounding area. Oh, and there was the massive protest outside from gay rights groups and sympathizers as well.

In fact, one of the church members has gone on record saying that gays are worthy of death.

Let me be clear, this disgusts me. These comments are ugly, uncaring and downright unChristian. And these comments don’t help anyone. They infuriate the homosexuals (understandably), and they give credence to the idea that the Church hates homosexuals, period. Where is the grace? And how are homosexuals to be wooed to Christ with such a hate-filled message.

Someone has also unearthed a 1978 message with Worley declaring that forty years ago, gays would be hanging from a white oak tree. Underlying the words that Worley uses, seems to be a belittling of gays and homosexuals and a feeling that he is better than they are. And one could even read hate into all this – and homosexuals will justifiably see it that way.

Most conservative Christians like me, decry these statements and distance ourselves from them. But some of the recent discussions at SharperIron here and here, sadly show that many basically support this pastor’s message.

There are numerous articles available online discussing Pastor Worley’s anti-gay message and I won’t provide them all here. I just want to explain why I think he is so wrong.

The Old Testament laws against homosexuality teach us that it is immoral, just as much as the laws against sex outside of marriage do, as well. But the corporal punishment and the death penalty was broadly applied in ancient Israel to a number of crimes including homosexuality. And it is wrong to extrapolate from these old laws that God wants homosexuals to be killed today. In fact in 1 Cor. 6, the Scripture says that some of the Christians in Corinth were formerly homosexulas and that they had been washed, cleansed and sanctified – and certainly weren’t worthy of death.

Jesus Christ and his death on the cross took the full punishment of all the coporal punishment-worthy crimes in the Old Testament law. And Jesus’ message of hope and forgiveness through the Gospel is given to all who believe. The Church is spread through persuasion and love, not coercion and the sword.

We should love and welcome homosexuals as fallen sinners (like us all). Their struggles with sin are real and difficult, not to be easily dismissed out of hand. But they must forsake their sin and come to the foot of the cross for forgiveness and healing – just like all of us need to as well.

I encourage you to read my reviews of the following two books for a fuller picture of my take on homosexuality and a Bible-based, sympathetic view that sees the practice as morally wrong, but upholds those who are homosexual as people in God’s image in need of a loving Savior.

Giving in to “Weaker Brothers”

~ Bob Hayton ~ 8 Comments

I came across an interesting post that raises a good question. Is it really okay to modify your actions based on the weaker consciences of some?

Here’s the post:

In 1857 a few white members of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa asked permission to celebrate the Lord’s Supper separately from their black brothers and sisters. The General Assembly believed their request was wrong, but it acquiesced “due to the weakness of some.” This concession soon became the norm, as white Christians increasingly chose to observe the Lord’s Supper without their black siblings. Their racism prompted the unwanted black Christians to leave and start their own churches. And so the South African church, divided by race, eventually became a vocal supporter of apartheid. In 1924 the DRC argued that the races must remain separate, for “competition between black and white on economic levels…leads to poverty, friction, misunderstanding, suspicion, and bitterness.”

How might the history of South Africa be different if the church had not conceded to the sinful request of a few “weaker brothers”? We are thankful for leaders such as Nelson Mandela who gave their lives to end apartheid. But it’s a shame on the church that their sacrifice was even needed.

Peter gave in to the “weaker brothers” in Antioch. He knew they were wrong to insist that Gentiles live like Jews, but afraid of what they might say, he refused to eat with Gentiles when these Judaizers came to town. Paul recognized this was a big deal, for the reason these Jews split from the Gentiles put the gospel at risk. How would the history of Christianity be different if Paul had not stood up to Peter’s shameful concession?

It’s never right to do wrong because others think it’s right. We must not violate our conscience on the flimsy ground that “They wouldn’t understand,” “It’s what they expect,” or “Just this once, what will it hurt?” It may seem easier to give in, but our concession will make life harder down the road.

–Read the original post from Mike Wittmer

I think you can definitely get in trouble if you’re always giving in to “weaker brothers”. It’s one thing to aim not to offend, it’s quite another to live your life with the weaker brother always potentially popping up at every turn.

What do you think? Is Mike Witmer way off base here? Am I?

Quotes to Note 32: John Piper on Godliness

~ Bob Hayton ~ 4 Comments

I came across this quote in reading through Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian, John Piper’s most recent book (Crossway, 2011). You can tell that Piper has thought about this more than just this little quote says. This resonates with me due to my experience in hard-nosed fundamentalism. But it’s not just fundamentalists, who can tend to think this way. Read the quote below and let me know what you think. This could be fodder for a healthy conversation.

Apathy is passionless living. It is sitting in front of the television night anfter night and living your life from one moment of entertainment to the next. It is the inability to be shocked into action by the steady-state lostness and suffering of the world. It is the emptiness that comes from thinking of godliness as the avoidance of doing bad things instead of the aggressive pursuit of doing good things.

If that were God’s intention for the godliness of his people, why would Paul say, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12)? People who stay at home and watch clean videos don’t get persecuted. Godliness must mean something more public, more aggressively good.

In fact, the aim of the gospel is the creation of people who are passionate for doing good rather than settling for the passionless avoidance of evil. “[Christ] gave himself for us… to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). The gospel produces people who are created for good works (Eph. 2:10), and have a reputation for good works (1 Tim. 5:10), and are rich in good works (1 Tim. 6:18), and present a model of good works (Titus 2:7), and devote themselves to good works (Titus 3:8, 14), and stir each other up to good works (Heb. 10:24). (pg. 101, emphasis added)

Piper goes on to stress being fervent and zealous in good works, but the point I wanted to hone in on is called out in bold emphasis above. Too often, conservative Christians rest in the fact that they are avoiding bad works. They can pride themselves in “watching clean videos,” not using foul language and etc. The old adage was something along these lines: Christians “don’t drink, don’t chew, and don’t go with those who do.” But merely being decent people is not what true godliness entails. We should take thought to what we are doing, not merely what we are not doing.

Food for thought, indeed!