Debunked: Fundamentalism vs. Legalism

What many, many people consider "Fundamentalism" is actually something putrid known as "Legalism".

Egad!  What are these long words!  What do they mean?  That is a fair question, of course, and naturally I will explain myself.

I will start with the term most people are familiar with:

Fundamentalism:

I am a Christian Fundamentalist.  As a Fundamentalist, I am concerned with the essentials or the basic function of Christianity.  The basic function of Christianity is to live like Christ.  In fact, the very word "Christian" means "to live in Christ" in Greek.  By this, I am concerned with living like Christ.

So, how did Christ live?  He followed two rules: Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and love everyone.  In order to live like Christ, I should strive to live by these principles as well.

That is Christian Fundamentalism in a nutshell, but maybe that's too simplistic for your taste.  I shall summarize what the majority of Fundamentalists believe.  The following are the Five Fundamentals of Christianity as they were established by the Niagara Bible Conference and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church:

1. The Bible was inspired by God, and is inerrant as a result.
2. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin.
3. Christ's death was the an atonement for sin.
4. Christ was bodily resurrected.
5. Christ's miracles are historically real.

That's it.  That's Christian Fundamentalism.  The first point listed understandably generates the most controversy, for not everyone believes the Bible is divinely inspired, but take a look at something:

• Christian Fundamentalism says nothing about homosexuality.
• It says nothing about abortion.
• It says nothing about Evolution.
• It says nothing about politics or government.
• It says nothing about Catholicism vs. Protestantism.
• It says nothing about religion vs. irreligion.

What does it say?  Love God and love people.  If you can do those things, then, in theory, everything else will fall into place.  Your mission will become serving God and serving others, rather than dictating their morality or forcing beliefs down their throat.  This doesn't sound like the Fundamentalism people are used to hearing about.  Who are these people that keep getting called "fundies"?

Legalism:

Christian Legalism is the over-emphasis on discipline of conduct.  The symptoms of Legalism are as follows:

• Misguided rigor
• Religious pride
• Superficiality
• Hypocrisy
• Noted neglect of compassion or mercy
• Ignorance of the grace of God
• Emphasizing the letter of the law over the spirit of the law
• Asserting the view that obedience to the "laws" of the Bible, not faith in God's grace, is the pre-eminent principle of redemption

A colleague of mine presented an interesting point regarding obeying the "laws" of the Bible.  He pointed out that only ten of all the "rules" stated in the Bible were directly from God.  The rest were created by man.  Moses authored the Mosaic Laws which are found in the Old Testament and followed by many Jews to this day.  Trying to adhere to all of these laws poses a risk of missing the whole point of Christianity: having a personal relationship with God.

It also puts you at risk of becoming an unpopular Bible-Thumper.  Jesus Christ was very frustrated with the Legalists of His day: the Pharisees.  He constantly called them out on their distortion of God's commandments and their pride in their religion.  This does not make all Christian Legalists judgmental bigots, of course.  However, the risk of becoming a bigot, or a modern day Pharisee, is very high.

What can bigotry do?  It can give you and the platform on whose behalf you are speaking a bad name.  A loud minority is a minority that is heard, and a minority that is heard can affect the opinion of the majority in the eyes of the third party.  In reality, not all Christians are bigots; likewise, not all bigots are Christians.  The Christians who are bigots, though, are the ones who are more ready to condemn and judge other people.  People generally respond negatively to such attacks, and therefore the platform these bigots represent (Christianity in this example) is given a negative connotation.

In the same way, Fundamentals are given a bad name—"Fundie"—because Legalists operate underneath that title.  So when you say that someone is a "Fundamentalist", what are you really saying about them?

The Problem of Good vs. Evil: Revisited

I feel compelled to further expound on the Good/Evil duality.

In my first Ruminations post, I briefly touched on the subject, but I wish to go deeper.  I believe I left some crucial points unmentioned, so I am going to dissect my first post and expand upon its ideas.  I'll start now:

What is Evil?  What is Good?

According to moral relativism, good and evil don't exist.  That's complete foolishness, because relativism disproves itself.  It is simply one's excuse to exempt oneself from responsibility and accountability.  It doesn't matter if you don't believe in a right and a wrong, because the country in which you live does.  No matter how relativistic your paradigm is, morality is imposed on you by society.  You are raised from birth being indoctrinated that morality is a thing, that it exists.  Most accept this indoctrination without question.  I, ever the Devil's Advocate, will gladly question this notion!

Let me ask you something: do you believe in morality?  Why?  What justification do you have for believing in morality?  By what standards to you base your morals?

If you answer was something along the lines of, "I believe in subjective morality", then you are, in my very humble opinion, making a paramount mistake.

The Illogic of Moral Subjection

Moral subjection is what happens when a person defines their own standards of what is "right" and what is "wrong".  It is very similar to moral relativism, and it is just as illogical.  To be frank, if you adhere to moral subjection, you have no justification to oppose rape, murder, thievery, dishonesty, or anything else that is popularly deemed "wrong".  At this point, you are probably wondering where I found the gall to make such a shocking claim.  Forthcoming: my explanation!

A person with a subjective morality has to set their own standards of "right" and "wrong".  This is something they must do on their own.  It is a personal thing.  Therefore, those standards are personal standards, and consequently can only be personal standards.  To impose your own arbitrary standards of morality on another person makes no sense!

Where do your morals come from?  From where did they first derive?  Did you make them up yourself?  That's moral subjection.  Did you obtain them from someone else?  That's moral subjection.  Did you acquire them from your parents or your culture?  That's moral subjection.  These sets of morality are entirely concocted by human beings, who are entirely arbitrary creatures.  If your morality is influenced by your opinion, it is subjective an unreliable due to its overwhelming lack of factuality (for opinions can never be nor become facts).

What comes about as a result?  Laws and political definitions.  Here in America (for I am an American), we have laws that prohibit certain courses of action.  Murder is a crime, for example.  My government has defined murder as a "wrong".  I have a few options, but I shall focus on the two most common: I can use my subjective opinion and agree with this definition of murder as a "wrong", or I can use my subjective opinion and disagree with this definition of murder as "wrong".  However, both scenarios do not in any way alter the true nature of murder.  The rightness or wrongness of murder (or any other action) is never for me to decide.

Where does morality come from?

Most of the time, it is made up.  The government of our respective nations tell us what is wrong and what is right, and we either comply or rebel.  Social acceptability tells us what is right and what is wrong, and we either conform or deviate.

There are those among us, though, who derive their sense of morality from higher, objective standards.  For Christians, these objective standards are found in the Bible as the Ten Commandments; and as we see in Exodus, the Bible and the government are in agreement that murder is in fact wrong, so subjective morality is certainly superior to total lack of morality.  Greater still, though, is objective morality.  Muslims find it in the Qur'an, Buddhists find it in The Eightfold Path.  Hindus find it through the study of karma.  Jews find it in Mosaic Law.

Those who do not affiliate with any religion, perhaps, find federal law to be their objective morality.  Even so, one should not define their morality solely by what they feel should be right or wrong.  That would make it far to easy to justify any sort of action, no matter how radical it was.  Rather, before any action is committed, contemplate it and anticipate the consequences.  Determine how your actions will affect yourself and others, and act accordingly.

In conclusion, I have but two questions:

1. Do Good and Evil exist?
2. Says who?

If you know the answers, then any research conducted will surely agree with you.  The truth is only found by those who go looking for it.