There Will Be Rules

"Some who had come down from Judea were instructing the brothers, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved.'"  ACTS 15:1

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Throughout St. Paul's ministry he came up against what he calls "judaizers" in his epistles.  A Judiazer taught that, in order for a Christian to truly be right with God, he must conform to the Mosaic Law. Circumcision, especially, was promoted as necessary for salvation.  There were rules that had to be followed, actions to be done, words that had to be said, foods that couldn't be eaten and hygienic practices that needed to be observed.  Then and only then, could one be right with God. 

At the first Council of Jerusalem described in the 15th chapter of Acts, the apostles concluded that since salvation is through faith in Christ--a condition not requiring observance of the customary Law of the Old Testament--Gentiles (and ultimately Jewish Christians as well) weren’t bound to keep Jewish customs as a prerequisite for membership in the Church (Gal 5:6).  In retrospect, we too acknowledge that the Judaizers were wrong in requiring these accoutrements.  

Yet in practice, there are some in the church who are veritable Judaizers requiring thoughts, words, deeds and conditions--apart from God's grace--in order to exhibit a proper relationship with God.  In one church that I was at, a fight broke out in the parking lot over one parishioner's Obama bumper sticker!  Apparently, according to one of the protagonists, one cannot be Christian and Democrat.

When we exclude others from the Kingdom with exclusions that Christ did not include, we exclude on the basis of our own biases, prejudices and a self-righteousness that, if we are frank, we cannot ourselves live up to.  This is precisely why Jesus called some of the Pharissees 'hypocrites.' Ultimately, while doctrine of course matters,  the real essentials” of Christianity are love, justice, mercy, and virtue, not man made rules that have nothing to do with the good news or the overwhelmingly outrageous love and mercy of God in Christ.