Two years ago, in an interview with World Magazine, Phil Vischer, the creator of (the popular show) “Veggie Tales” spoke of his regret regarding the confusion of morality and Christian faith. “After the bankruptcy I had kind of a forced sabbatical of three or four months of spending time with God and listening to Him. I looked back at the previous 10 years and realized I had spent 10 years trying to convince kids to behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity. And that was a pretty serious conviction. You can say, "Hey kids, be more forgiving because the Bible says so," or "Hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so!" But that isn't Christianity, it's morality.” (http://www.worldmag.com/2011/09/it_s_not_about_the_dream)
Morality is
an aspect of culture. It refers to a set
of rules that distinguish between what’s good and what’s bad. Morality is promoted and/or enforced in a
culture group, and it is taught to the new generations: do this; don’t do
that! It is a common mistake, especially
when we focus primarily on the Old Testament and Mosaic Laws, to think that Christianity
is basically a form of morality with its own God-given list of do’s and don’ts.
If you follow the rules, God will love you; if you don’t live according to
these rules, you will be condemned. Once
you accept this line of thinking, the struggle begins to exactly define what
constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior. On earth there is no perfect
Christian culture with its own unique fully-spelled-out code of conduct. Even if there was, our greatest efforts to
adhere to it would be counterproductive as these would lead to hypocrisy and
pride. Also, people are greatly affected
by the spirit of their times and their surrounding culture as well as the
traditions of their ancestors, so Christians at different times and places will
work out different codes of proper conduct.
This was already true in the early church (Romans 14). Satan must love
this confusion of Christianity with morality, for it is an effective way to
fragment the people of God. Also, it helps to build pride, where those who
adhere to a stricter code of conduct tend to consider themselves to be better
Christians than the others.
Of course, there
is a link between Christian faith and behavior. Jesus warns many times that those
who love Him will show this by following Him in their walk and talk! A true disciple is one who more and more
lives and talks just like his Master.
Many seem
to think that Christians must live decently and proper according to the local
tradition! Yet, this usually results
from a dangerous confusion of Christian principles and cultural tradition. In one church I was reprimanded by the
council for not condemning (in my teaching of the young people) the use of
candles or liturgical dance into the worship services, as such practices would
go against the second of the Ten Commandments!
I replied that, rather they were abusing the Ten Commandments to protect
their own traditions as if they were the very Word of God. Even Jesus and his disciples were criticized
for behavior such as (1) not washing their hands, (2) not fasting, (3) picking
and eating some produce along the road on a Sabbath day, and (4) enjoying good
food and a good glass of wine. If we
honestly look at John the Baptist or Jesus of Nazareth, we must admit that they
did not care so much to follow all the cultural expectations of ‘good or decent
behavior’. The story of Jesus with the
woman at the well (John 3) shows that he cared little about local culture if it
would stand in the way of promoting God’s Kingdom. So, Morality-Christianity causes divisions
and pride, and it confuses the will of God with one’s own cultural
tradition. It no longer puts God in the centre of life,
as it seeks to train people to be man-pleasers rather than God-praisers. Ask Christians how to recognize a true Christian.
These are some of the answers I have heard,
- · Attend worship services twice each Sunday, wearing ‘Sunday clothes’.
- · Never buy anything (or mow your lawn) on Sundays.
- · Abstain from smoking and consuming alcoholic drinks.
- · Give ten percent of your income to the church and/or church-endorsed organizations.
- · Having clean and orderly homes.
- · Be well groomed at all times; use deodorant.
Somehow it
is so easy to think that the wonderful nice, friendly, decent families that
live in our richy neighborhoods are nearer to the Kingdom of God than the
broken-up black immigrant families downtown that have come as refugees from
some African or Middle-Eastern country.
If we would learn to look at people from God’s perspective, we would be
forced to draw the dividing lines in most unexpected places! In my first year teaching at a public school,
one day after lunch the ambulance had to come to pick up a drunken student who
had passed out in the hall. Getting into the classroom, one of my students
(associated with the Jehovah’s Witnesses) commented to me about the scene, “So
bad, so pathetic”. I remember thinking, “Yes, but perhaps she is closer to the
Kingdom than you are, for she may well know her misery, while in your pride you
presume you need no doctor.”
When we
came to China I had a colleague who, though he was the son of a Baptist pastor,
had converted to Mormonism. Although
Mormonism may –on the surface- look like another branch of Christianity, it is
very different in its core beliefs. So, I was surprised how someone could make
this transition and exchange the truth of God for the quest to be a god like
Him. Interestingly, another colleague at the time, a wonderful Christian
Brother, explained to me that it is quite common among (Baptist) Christians to
see Mormons as “superior Christians”, as they are more disciplined in moral
living. If faith has as purpose to produce
decent living, acceptable to God, it does make sense to confuse Mormonism with
Christianity.
Somehow, in North
America it is not uncommon for Christians to think that if the society would
take the Ten Commandments as their rule of life, that this would make
Christianize the country and establish the Kingdom of God. Yet, this is a terrible mistake. God’s
Kingdom cannot be enforced by laws and repercussions; it can only flourish when
human hearts are transformed by the Grace of God and thus offer their lives as
thank offering to Him. In traditional
churches also there is a serious danger to use community and family pressure to
prove that we are true Christians by publicly carefully following the accepted
code of conduct. And so, we seek to
produce people-pleasers instead of people who are Spirit-filled, showing
genuine appreciation of God’s amazing grace. Morality is all about ‘doing good’.
Things are ‘good’ when they beautifully fulfil the purpose for which they are made. The purpose for which we were made is to
worship God: to humbly recognize and admit our personal refusal and failure to
put God in the center of our lives (sin), and, after appreciating God’s
forgiveness in the death of Christ, to give (everything in) our lives as a sacrifice
of thanksgiving to our Perfect Father, God.
Anything outside of this only serves to inflate our own egos and keep
for ourselves that which we owe to Him.
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