Here’s another memorable, close-to-the-bone passage from Ted Peters’ excellent Sin Boldly!: Justifying Faith for Fragile and Broken Souls, this time on the human propensity for making grace into law.
The Reformation victory took place in the sixteenth century. Five centuries later, how should we assess what is going on today? Beneath the ideology of works righteousness, or legalism, or whatever we might wish to call it, we find the fragile soul. Medieval Roman Catholic theology is but one doctrinal codification of a common structure at work in the human mind. The fragile soul belongs to the human race as such. It is universal. Though some individuals seem to get along without it, by and large, each of us exhibits traits of the fragile soul (though some more than others). And human beings in groups find no escape from the damage the fragile soul can inflict… The fragile soul is pre-religious, so to speak: it affect our disposition whether we belong to a formal religious institution or not.
So I ask: Will pure doctrine protect us from the vicissitudes of the fragile soul? No. A striving for purity in doctrine has its value, to be sure; but the fragile soul can effect damage within pure doctrine just as well as within any heterodox doctrine. In fact, a passionate and rigid adherence to pure doctrine can distort the soul as much as outright belief in the ideology of good works. Here is my point: what is at stake is not the content of pure doctrine but rather the purity in our attitude toward it. Such purity in attitude can be a form of spiritual duct tape, a “no trespassing” sign to keep the divine spirit and human compassion away.
This may at first seem confusing. Reformation theology is dedicated to stamping out legalism, works righteousness, and authoritarianism. Yet, who is calling the kettle black? Can the reformers exhibit the same fragility and legalism as those they are trying to reform? Perhaps we are talking less about the content of a healthy theology and more about the mood or tone or demeanor of the theologians…
The takeaway is this: our conscience can panic as it pursues religious teaching in its maximum purity… This panic is stirred up by an underlying anxiety, the same anxiety that drives the fragile soul to seek security in legalism. If we believe our eternal survival depends on getting the doctrine just right–on believing just the right thing–then we will stop at nothing to purify our central beliefs to the utmost degree. The net result is the same rigidity, absolutism and intolerance that accompanied the very legalism pure doctrine sought to combat. Such is the paradoxical yet ubiquitous influence of the fragile soul engaged in sheepish sinning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIlm32pbre0
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7 responses to “Legalism, Doctrine, and Moody Theologians”
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Great stuff. As a veteran of some fairly vicious fights over Reformation theology, this stings a bit, but rings very true.
Having not yet read the book, I’m uncertain as to where the author is going, but is the problem he’s discussing really a matter of what he’s identified (“fragile soul”), or is it (as Luther himself noted, regarding the loss of Justification within a generation) the crucial divide between the nature of Reform which came from Wittenburg (Doctrinal) and that which (as noted by Mc Grath in Reformation Thought) that which derived from Geneva (Moral)? The consequences of those distinctions became evident even in Luther’s lifetime (Marburg) and have lead to an array of theological differences on everything from the order of salvation, to the sacraments and the nature of sanctification. The issue, I suspect, is that the church (to paraphrase Farrar) rarely still uncorks the “100% proof grace” vintage that Christ left it, but waters this down with all manner of “do not” theology, and thereby misses the shelter of the Rock in the wilderness (Isaiah 33:16).
I think what is being addressed here has nothing to do with “grace” vs. “law” theology. What is addressed is something that runs deep in the human psyche and a constant that is present in all of us, no matter what our theology or lack thereof. There is a fear in all of us who are at least semi-serious about our Christian confession that God is somehow not able to work unless we do everything in our power to make sure the “pure” message of Jesus gets told. This effort to get the “pure” Jesus message out there usually turns us into self-important asses….both of the “law” and the “grace” varieties.
Thanks for the reply, Michael. As I said, I’ve not yet read the book, so I’m somewhat at a loss at present to really understand what the author is saying. Your reply suggests that fear generates a form of works righteousness (making sure we say/do everything right if we want God to act), and this, perhaps (to refer to the quote in this piece) is because of the mood and ‘demeanor’ (the fragility) of the one(s) seeking to do so? Just seeking to unpack this a little more clearly in relation to truth – thanks for your help.