Weaker Brother or Small Minded Legalist? A polemic.

There are a couple of Scripture passages that really annoy me. Oops, let me rephrase that. The lazy way some Christians interpret them annoys me. The passages in question are 1 Corinthians 10:14-33 and Romans 14:1-23. I’m not going to post them here because they are too long, but you can read them online in any translation you want—including the Arabic Life Application Bible—at http://www.biblegateway.com/ I’d suggest "The Message". It's a great translation. Unless you have them memorized, you may want to scan them before reading the rest of this.

The passages give advice to mature Christians about how to behave in ways that are sensitive to immature believers and also encourages them not to worry about small-minded people.

Numerous times I’ve heard these passages reduced to, “If something is going to offend someone’s sensibilities, I just won’t do it around them.” That interpretation is inaccurate and possibly harmful because it binds the freedom of believers and suggests an acceptance of duplicitous behavior.

Inaccurate Interpretation:
Read the passages again. In essence, they say: be careful how you relate to new Christians, especially ones who have had really bad religious teaching, because they are likely to have screwed up ideas about what it means to be faithful. Help them through this time and show them how to be free. On the other hand, the world is full of small-minded people and you can’t go around every day worrying about what they think. In all cases, use your head.

They don’t say: “I won't do something if it might offend someone’s sensibilities."

You can boil the passages down to issues of “freedom” (which is good) vs. “license” (which is bad). The challenge is knowing when to apply "freedom" (I will stride past the small-minded person) and when to apply "license" (I will be considerate of their feelings).

Interpreting the passages as I noted equates all “offended people” to being “less free” or “the weaker brother”, and they aren’t the same thing! The weaker brother is defined as one who received bad religious teaching he received in his pre-Christian state, and is thus impeded in his understanding of Christian freedom.

Binds the freedom of believers:
When I’ve seen people apply this passage to their lives it generally has not been to those situations, but instead has been to avoid offending Christians who have who have scruples about what comprises “Good (and Really Good) Christian Behavior”.

• Good Christians don’t go to R movies. Really Good Christians watch only Christian films. Some Mormon family films are also acceptable.

• Good Christians home school their children. Really Good Christians home school other peoples’ children.

• Good Christians don’t let their kids listen to secular music. Really Good Christians have the Christian radio station on all the time.

• Good Christians don’t smoke (this doesn’t apply to Christians in tobacco growing regions). Really Good Christians believe no one should because the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

• Good Christians don’t drink. Really Good Christians won’t even have sparkling grape juice.

• Good Christians are Republicans. Really Good Christians vote for Pat Robertson.

• Good Christians watch Fox News and listen to Rush Limbaugh. Really Good Christians watch only Christian TV or abstain entirely from TV.

• Good Christians play cards because it’s good, clean family fun—certainly better than TV. Really Good Christians don’t play cards.

• Good Christians vacation at Disney World or Branson, MO. Really Good Christians boycott Disney because they have “Gay Day” and instead attend only Christian theme parks.

• Good Christians don’t gamble (this doesn’t apply to Catholics and Bingo, because they’re doing it for their parish school). Really Good Christians don’t even buy lottery tickets, not even a scratcher on their birthday, just for fun.

• Good Christians don’t get depressed. Really Good Christians know that depression is a sign of spiritual weakness or sin.

“(Really) Good Christian Behavior” includes subtly disdaining those who disagree. It can’t be direct disdain, because that would be distasteful, but it should come across in the tone of the conversation.

• “No I didn’t see American Idol last night. We stopped watching TV because we realized it was polluting our kids’ minds.”

• “We home school. We don’t want our kids stuck in that cesspool of American Education. Where did you say your kids go to school again?”

• “You listen to rap? Aren’t you afraid of what it will do to you?”

• “You went to Mohegan Sun? Why? There’s nothing there but a casino.”

Let me be really clear. Having the scruples is not the problem. We all have them. The problem comes when the scruple becomes the person's way of defining Good Christian Behavior for others. Then other believers tiptoe around these people in an effort not to offend them. But they're not “weaker brothers”, they're just legalists. (Frankly the list of things people can get offended about could go on and on. I tried to pick on as many groups as I could think of. If you can think of others, post them as comments.)

Tiptoeing around these people won't do any good. You can't change them. If you interpret the passage to mean, “I won’t do anything to offend anybody”, you'll end up doing what the passage says you shouldn't do. You'll be “walking on egg shells worrying about small-minded people.” In living that way, the legalist always gets his way and the believer is hamstrung.

Encourages Duplicitous Behavior:
The believer who seeks never to offend anybody will likely engage in duplicitous behavior. On the more innocuous level, the believer in makes small adjustments in his life.

• He looks around to make sure no one from church is around when he buys a lottery ticket.

• He doesn’t talk about his trip to Vegas in Sunday School.

• She won’t admit to watching Desperate Housewives at the ladies circle.

• They don’t want people from church to find out they are having a card party with beer.
  

There’s an old Christian rock song by the Swirling Eddies called, “Hide the beer, the pastor’s here”. (Here’s a Jeff Foxworthy style test for you…If you have trouble believing that a Christian band could have such a name or write such as song, you might be a legalist.)

In sum, the believer may act more like himself around non-believers than around Christians that he might offend, and adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach when around other believers.

Those are relatively innocuous examples of duplicitous behavior, but in some churches the problems are deeper and more harmful to the believers in them. Think about this:

• Do you feel free at your church to ask for prayer for a deep struggle, such as depression, or would you be afraid that you would be viewed as weak or carnal? Do you limit your prayer requests for asking the Lord to heal sniffles and Aunt Edna’s irritable bowel syndrome?

• Do you feel like an outsider at your church if you behave differently from the church norms? Are you afraid to ask questions, especially about controversial topics?

• Do you feel more like yourself away from your church than when you are at it?

• Do you feel like your church is insulated from the world around it and exhibits xenophobia or parochialism?
  

If any of these things are true, you could be in an unhealthy church situation that you should consider leaving. The Bible doesn’t say, “You will learn what others think and their thoughts will bind you.” It says, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

You may be saying, “What’s the big deal? It’s more charitable to seek not to offend people rather than risk causing grief with those around you. So what if I cover up a few things? Not everyone needs to know my business anyway. What’s the alternative? Flaunt your views? Wave lottery tickets and cigarettes in people’s faces?”

No. The real alternative is to do what the passage says, and live your life and let the chips fall where they may. Don’t worry about your image; just live your life the best you know how, and expect that no matter what you do, someone won’t like it.

Post-script:
You may be reading this and thinking,

• “Wow, you’re really wound up about nothing. Who put that hair across your butt?”

• “I think you’re writing this to excuse some behaviors you are ashamed of. The people who live this way are putting you under conviction because you’re not living right.”

• “Well if those people are being duplicitous they obviously have something to hide!”

• “Why are making fun of Christians who hold these beliefs? When you adopt this tone you’re just as bad as the people you are accusing!”

• “You claim to be a Christian, but you don’t seem to like them very much!”
  

I started developing the thoughts for this post several weeks ago and had a hard time writing it because I predicted those reactions and didn’t want to deal with them. Why? Because I don’t want to offend anybody. I mean this sincerely—I know some of you will think this is one last bite of sarcasm, but it’s not—I really wish nobody would be offended by this. I don’t want to offend anybody, but I just know I will. I just think this message is more important than worrying about it. I hope that’s freedom and not license, but I may never know for sure.

I also thought about putting disclaimers around things I said to try to avoid bad reactions (“some of my best friends are home schoolers who don’t watch TV”) and gave it up because I realized I’d only be doing it to appease easily offended people. I just decided to subtitle this “a polemic” and let the chips fall where they may. The church could use more polemics today.