(This is the beginning of a several part discourse regarding Legalism, Phariseeism, and Patriocentricity)
What is Legalism? Patriocentrists often complain that they are labeled as legalists, but that there is no basis for the charge. They are simply following the Bible, after all… I thought it would be helpful to come up with a definition of legalism. As I studied, I found an unlikely source for the definition I like to use. It comes from Kevin Swanson, of all places!
Kevin Swanson’s definitions of legalism:
1. The Serial Killer’s definition (aka, the Antinomian) : Legalism occurs anytime you bring up God’s law in any context whatsoever
2. Justification by works
3. When we replace God’s laws/principles, with our own conception of what God’s principles ought to say (our own traditions)
When a Serial Killer Calls You a Legalist
I’ve yet to encounter a patriocentrist who would fall into the first definition. Generally, patriocentrists tend to be theonomists or reconstructionists where there is a good deal of emphasis on the Law, and not just the Ten Commandments, but all of it. They are about as far from Antinomian as you could possibly get.
As to the second definition, well, I’m not quite sure it’s fair to say that they hold to “justification by works.” Certainly, in their statements of faith, they confess to salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone. However, when you make statements like this:
“In conscious opposition to feminism, egalitarianism, and the humanistic philosophies of the present time, the church should proclaim the Gospel centered doctrine of biblical patriarchy as an essential element of God’s ordained pattern for human relationships and institutions.”
And this:
“Biblical patriarchy is just one theme in the Bible’s grand sweep of revelation, but it is a scriptural doctrine, and faithfulness to Christ requires that it be believed, taught, and lived.”
I get a little concerned. But let’s give patriocentrists the benefit of the doubt and move on to the third definition. This is the one that I believe fits and where I think the patriocentrists fall. They have replaced God’s laws/principles, with their own conception of what God’s principles ought to say.
Let’s take homeschooling for example. God’s Law requires that we teach the Faith to our children at all times (Deuteronomy 6). Patriocentrists take this verse and run with it, creating a command that is eisegeted into the passage. Somehow, Deuteronomy 6 now means that we have to homeschool and, if we don’t, we’ve sent our children off to centers of Baal worship.
Or what about the famous Deuteronomy 22:5 -
“A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”
Somehow, this has been twisted to mean that women can’t wear pants. The “dresses-only” movement has produced such stellar apologetical essays as
What about “stay-at-home” daughterhood? I’ve seen exactly ONE Scriptural reference used to support this concept:
“If a woman vows a vow to the Lord and binds herself by a pledge, while within her father’s house in her youth and her father hears of her vow and of her pledge by which she has bound herself and says nothing to her, then all her vows shall stand, and every pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand.
“But if her father opposes her on the day that he hears of it, no vow of hers, no pledge by which she has bound herself shall stand. And the Lord will forgive her, because her father opposed her.
Numbers 30: 3-5
Two girls took this concept and ran with it, and now Vision Forum has a whole new product line to sell to us. College is EVIL! Especially college for women:
“The priests and priestesses of the 21st century would have us believe that the most sacred of our cultural holy cows come from the temples of feminism.
One such sacred cow is the notion that truly enlightened, responsible Christian parents should mortgage their homes to send their daughters to the carnival culture of college, to live for four years in co-ed dormitories, and under the tutelage of Babylonian high priests called professors, so that these blood-bought daughters can aspire to become the next generation of independent working women of the world. Another sacred cow is the notion that people either believe in sending daughters to college or they are small-minded, anti-education, woman-dominating bigots.
Incredibly, these mad-cow disease-infected sacred bovines of modern feminism have left the dung fields of their secular temple culture and have migrated in herds to the living rooms of our Christian community. There they dwell-mooing, snorting, and wreaking havoc on the peace of the Body of Christ. “
Doug’s Blog, September 1, 2007
There is no explicit command for daughters, or even sons for that matter, to stay at home until they are married. There is not even an implicit command! We may see that “pattern” throughout Scripture, but I think it’s important to ask ourselves if this is the way God designed things or whether or not it had more to do with the culture of the time and the fact that it simply wasn’t safe for daughters to go out on their own. And we certainly see PLENTY of women doing “non-normative” things like ruling a nation, working outside the home, and financially supporting Jesus’ ministry (not to mention following him around everywhere he went!).
How about women working outside the home? See the following articles for more on this:
Jennie Chancey Responds to Titus 2 Cynics
Is It Sin for a Woman to Work Outside the Home?
Do What God Says and Let Him Take Care of the Rest
So, where do we draw the line between liberty and legalism? I think the answer is fairly simple. We WWF believe that a number of the patriocentrists’ pet issues are matters of Christian liberty. God has explicitly called us to train our children and teach them the Faith. The way we do that is left up to us. God has explicitly commanded modesty of both women AND men. What passes as modest will vary from culture to culture. We’d freak out if we saw a bare-breasted woman walking down the street in America, but in innumerable tribal cultures, this is the standard and nobody bats an eyelash. As for daughters staying at home until marriage- again, that is a matter of liberty to be determined by the father AND mother and, I think the adult daughter. What about women working outside the home? Frankly, I see the pattern set forward in Scripture as women staying at home, HOWEVER, I refuse to dismiss those who do not as non-normative. They are there and, frankly, I believe it is sinful to dismiss them. We need to seek out the whole counsel of God and not just that which fits into our agenda.
We cross the line into legalism when we add to God’s commands. And I contend that, by saying Christian families must homeschool, women must wear skirts or dresses only, daughters must stay home until marriage, women can’t be homemakers and work outside the home, we do cross that line! We’ve read into the Bible what seems culturally relevant to us.
Look at the pet issues of the patriocentrists- homeschooling, dresses-only, daughters at home, women at home… they are all reactionary and are all based on fear of the culture. We can’t send our children off to Baal worship centers! Pants aren’t feminine and someone might mistake you for a man from the backside (unlikely, but okay…). Daughters need protecting, even the very adult ones (and sons do not, apparently) and they can’t go to college or they’ll turn into feminists! Women must be keepers at home because if they start to earn their own money, they’ll want ownership of it and they’ll usurp the headship of their husbands! Look at this! It is totally reactionary! It’s not from the Bible! They’ve taken “Come out and be ye separate” to a whole new level! And they are selling it to us hook, line, and sinker.
Okay – So I’m in a quandry here. I am a man, but apparently if agreement with your posts thus far is any indication, I am a White Washed Feminist as well. Perhaps in my case, being a man, I would be a Stuccoed Feminist or maybe a Concrete Feminist. Well, whatever … I agree so much with this post that it’s almost impossible to fathom.
The danger that I see in the patriocentrist vision and product is that at first glace it can seem quite appealing. There is no question but that our culture is deteriorating rapidly. Western civilization has turned against Christ and the culture demonstrates that more and more. The idea of drawing a line in the sand and standing firm for Christianity in a militant way can look like a very good idea. In fact, I would say that it is a great idea … as long as it is Biblical Christianity, not Christianity as defined by a preacher apart from the Bible, or by using scriptures out of context in rapid succession so as to overwhelm the hearer into thinking the message is biblical when it is not (machine gun proof texting).
But once you dig in deeper, you realize that these folks are way off base, as long as you haven’t been brain-washed or lulled to sleep by their cults of personality before you get the chance to think.
The danger comes in the natural human propensity to continually push at the boundaries. I doubt that the Patriarchy crowd was this extreme when it all began. As long as they are allowed to continue to push the boundaries – getting more and more radical as they go, they will never stop. They will fall further and further into legalism, dictatorial rule, and mysogyny as they go, taking more and more unsuspecting victims with them.
We need to make sure we shine the spotlight of truth on what they are doing so fewer people will be taken in by that first glance. Thank you for doing just that on this blog.
Bravo, Jen. This post is spot on. They make matters of liberty into matters of law. And there is no reason that I must submit to man-made law when I have freedom in Christ Jesus.
Okay, so the title of your blog scares me a little, but I really like what I see so far. Keep the focus on Jesus, and I’ll keep coming back. I’ve linked to you ladies on my blog.
You may be interested in my latest post, “Politics and Religion, What the Left is Afraid of (I guess I’m a little slow)”. It addresses some of the same issues you all have posted about here at WWF. You might find some other interesting stuff there, too.
Check it out: http://www.joyfullygrowingingrace.wordpress.com .
Enjoying your blog – it’s making me think!
Free in Christ,
Wendy
Hi JGIG and welcome!
(I don’t have anything to do with this blog but am a self-declared WWF after labeled as such.) It’s a sardonic title that was meant as a pejorative but I think those of us who were labeled have grown to like it and sarcastically adopt it in the full context of what we are told it means.
About the “brave new angry Calvinist” that you wrote about on your blog, I really believe that the whole Christian Reconstruction thing had a very different flavor years ago. The goal was reformation, but it was not through totalitarian means or by dominating the government. It was based in freedom and trusting in God, not in domineering leadership. (I was never crazy about Falwell at all, but D. James Kennedy’s style and approach was wonderful to me.) It honored the spirit of freedom and liberty that flowed from the effects of the Word of God, not against that spirit. That’s no longer true.
Many of us have discussed this, and as you also kept watch on these things, something shifted when the big names in the movement started to age or pass on, all within reasonably close proximity to the turn of the century. Some attach this to the disappointment in those who anticipated total catastrophe after Y2K, and they are now even more mad because they had egg on their faces. They went from trusting in freedom to trusting in power.
Who these young bucks are now are not anything like what they were. If they were authoritarians who were more interested in power than they ever were about liberty, they didn’t always show their true colors. Some of it was that I didn’t want or expect to see the power element, but they also did get more verbal and aggressive.
The whole roots of the patriarchy movement, many of which I see springing from the teachings of Bill Gothard, were not as bizarre and extreme years ago, either. I thought things were bad in the Gothard influenced environment that I spent some time in years ago, but it seems like heaven compared to the sharp, condemning edge of this patriarchy movement which is all wrapped up in politics.
Cindy K – Thanks for the welcome =o). I enjoyed your series on contrasting “The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage” with patriocentricity. Lots of good info and food for thought there.
About me “having kept watch on these things” . . . that’s not exactly accurate. Patiarchy, Dominionism, Reconstructionism, etc. have just in the past several months or so popped up on my radar screen. They came on the heels of my researching the Hebrew Roots Movement before that, which is a movement some families on a “moms of many” forum I subscribe to are involved with. I do have a nose for legalism, but I was smelling something beyond just that when it came to the HRM. What I was smelling was outright heresy.
These other “movements” have just kind of landed in my lap as related law-keeping factions. I don’t know everything about their history or doctrinal systems, but I know enough to reject what they teach and advocate and have a good grasp of the key elements about which to caution others.
I’m a “where the rubber meets the road” kind of gal in the discernment ring. The subheader on my blog is “A Simple Heart Living a Simple Faith”, and that pretty much sums it up for me. I’m not formally trained in theology nor do I have a lot of time to devote to exhaustive research. I do, however, believe that it is VITALLY important for run of the mill believers like me to be able to sniff out error while at the same time being open to the Holy Spirit growing and maturing us.
If I can give people some practical tools for discernment on a basic level and keep things centered on Jesus and point people’s hearts and minds toward Him . . . that’s my goal for JGIG. Oh yeah, and a little humor sprinkled in every now and then just for fun =o).
Hmm… I did a post – one that is meant to be the beginning of a series, but I haven’t gotten back to it…. that touches on these issues – a little… I will try to post a link here, but I’m not sure it will work – haven’t bothered to learn how to do this yet…..
http://truth-makes-freedom.blogspot.com/2008/05/womans-place-other-thoughts.html
Cally, WONDERFUL post!! I love your work. Bravo!!
By the grace of God, I have an excellent kook-detecter.
“And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.”
“Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.”
I have heard these folks over the years, waxing more eloquent. I’ve been concerned about where they are going, and what kind of fruit this will yield, because if what Richard says is true:”They will fall further and further into legalism, dictatorial rule, and mysogyny..” Then this is a threat to the safety of women- in the church!
For years I have been warning folks in my denom that their doctrine is creating a hostile environment for women. They teach that God views women in pants as an abomination, and that we should see sin as he sees it….
It’s not surprising then, to hear that a third grader at a Christian school told his mother in the car to “run over her, mommy. She’s a bad woman. She wears pants!”
I believe they are (unintentionally) cultivating a subtle attitude of misogyny that is nourished by these popular patriocentric doctrines. But my warnings are laughed to scorn.