Pharisaism vs. a New Kind of Church of Christ Conservatism

Go and learn what this means...

Despite the accusations progressives sometimes make, Biblical conservatism (read: a desire to apply the text faithfully and literally) is not synonymous with Pharisaism. However, there is such a thing as Pharisaism, and its pitfalls are inherently more dangerous to conservatives.

Among those in the conservative side of the churches of Christ (the overwhelming majority of this site’s demographics), the urge toward the Pharisaical is something against which we have to take constant care.

But, before we get into the problems of Pharisaism and how they apply to us, we first have to give credit where it’s due.

While the Sadducees were the theological liberals who blew off much of the Old Testament and denied the resurrection, the Pharisees were the nearest thing to a “back to the Bible” movement. Israel learned little from their captivities and over time got back to their idolatry and worldly compromise. The Pharisees came together as a theologically conservative movement who wanted Israel to take the Law seriously again. The reforms they brought to Jewish Scriptural rigidity had some important bright spots.

Now, we might say they went too far with their reforms. But it would be more accurate to say that their well-intended reforms missed the point.

While trying to cross all their t’s and dot all their i’s, they forgot why they were doing so in the first place. To the Pharisees, the Law was an end in itself. They kept the Law for the sake of keeping the Law, checking off all the right boxes.

And because righteousness was about box-checking, it soon became about praise-chasing. They were far more concerned with the outward than the inward (Matthew 6:1-18; 23:25-28). And because man naturally wants to be better than other men, praise-chasing resulted in adding a never ending list of restrictions and traditions to create more boxes to check.

All of this left the common man
1) in awe of the righteousness of the Pharisees
2) unconfident in his ability to discern what pleases God and
3) buried under a burden he could never carry, knowing nothing of God’s grace.

This set the stage for Jesus’ critiques of the Pharisees. The correction Jesus offered was to show that the point of the Law was not public recognition or box checking, but nearness to God.

This is where today’s conservative Christians must tread carefully.

There are those who offer topical lessons that string together 87 tangentially related Scriptures without context to make a new law. This approach tells the people in the pews they have no chance of understanding the Word for themselves and no hope of discerning what God wants of them. Rather, they’re at the mercy of these experts in the Law. And the more of those they hear, the more land mines they have to worry about stepping on in their walk.

“If the guy baptizing me accidentally said the ‘Father, Son, Holy Spirit’ part out of order, am I saved?”

“It’s December 8 and the song leader led ‘Joy to the World.’ Is he going to hell?”

“The preacher didn’t offer a 5 step invitation at the end of the sermon—this might not be a sound congregation.”

No grace, no confidence in Christ, no hope of spiritual maturity apart from the preacher’s wall of text Bible study method.

What Pharisees old and new missed was that there will always be matters of discernment in serving God.

Because they reject this, on every issue they will either weave together as many dubiously connected verses as needed to make tradition into law, or they will ignore a matter entirely because “you can’t bind that.” There is no space for good/better/best and the ability for Christians to come to different conclusions on lesser matters as we strive to discern what is pleasing to God.

And so we stick to being hall monitors of law and tradition rather than working to present every man mature in Christ.

In prominent wings of the conservative churches of Christ, far more attention is given to “the threat of denominationalism” than to the threat of worldliness. But the average family in our pews is way more likely to passively have their minds warped by the TV and iPhone than they are to become Baptists.

Pornography use among Christians remains a massive issue that often goes unaddressed, but don’t you dare let somebody see you with a nativity scene in your house. Our churches are filled with feminist women and apostatizing children, but rather than dealing with that, some would rather attempt to destroy anyone who says our eternal home might be physical and not just spiritual.

The kind of person who blasted us at Focus Press for disagreeing on the issue of alcohol will also turn around and shout us down for encouraging Christian families to stop giving money to Disney or pointing out the dangers of public education.

And on these crusades, they see no problem in slandering brethren and trying to ruin them financially, relationally, and reputationally. In their calculations, God cares far more about someone crossing a line of tradition than He does about them charitably dealing with a brother.

They’re doing what Pharisees do: they’re missing the point.

Lest you say I’m opening the door to progressivism by suggesting not every Biblical teaching is a law and we have areas of discernment, I must point out that it’s possible to be fiercely Biblically conservative without becoming a Pharisee.

How do I know? Because that’s exactly what Jesus did.

It’s informative that Jesus’ primary sparring partners came from the more Biblically grounded sect. They were on a collision course as the two options people could turn to for teaching from the Scriptures.

What Jesus’ departures from their teachings showed was that one could hold to God’s Word completely without falling into legalism. He was not a progressive who downplayed obedience, despite how progressives portray Him. He put heavy emphasis on obedience—but obedience aimed at nearness to God rather than obedience for obedience’s sake.

He also did not side with the progressives who downplay doctrine in the name of love and grace. When the progressives see Jesus critiquing the Pharisees they see it as a critique of textual rigidity, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus didn’t pit justice, mercy, and faith against sacrifice. He said they should have done both.

In other words, Jesus was conservative—but a new kind of conservative.

And that’s what I’m advocating here. Many people feel alienated by the church’s shaky left and graceless right. They aren’t going to downplay the Word, but neither are they going to cancel anybody who disagrees with them on one single issue. It’s time for a conservatism that strongly rejects each of those paths and gets back to Biblical literalism without being legalistic, and emphasizes the heart without downplaying the Word.

Rather than asking what we have to do and what we are not allowed to do, at the heart of everything will be the question, “What is pleasing to God?”

In this conservatism, there will be black and white matters, no doubt. But there will also be a lot of gray matters in which we can use wisdom and Biblical principles to argue for good, better, and best.

And on these matters, we can allow a range of views. Even strong disagreement can be tolerated, because fellowship and salvation don’t hang in the balance. You’re not going to write me off to hell, and I’m not going to do it to you.

As to what we can do about this practically, we’ve gone long enough for now, and we’ll have to look at that another day.

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