Once you get a taste of it, you will do almost anything to find more. It’s maybe the ultimate addiction.

Legalism comes with secure boundaries, clear authority, cleanliness, and disgust. It vacillates between pride and self-condemnation. It produces a kind of guilty depression that is itself addictive.

Ok, let me be clear. We think we don’t want legalism. We think we want grace. So, we dumb down the idea of grace — the robust, gospel-shaped kind would scare us to death! — into a sort of Grace Lite. We convince ourselves that because we have more “freedom of the Spirit” or more “freedom in worship” we have left legalism for grace.

Hardly.

Legalism beckons us. It makes us plead for more authority — from husband, from father, from church leaders. We want structure . . . we want to be told what to do . . . we want to fall in line.

Our need for legalism is so great we’ll break family ties to keep it (all the while priding ourselves on our freedom). We want the rules; we want the structure; we beg for order.

One of the challenges of ministry is helping legalism addicts. They flit about from place to place, but they can’t “rest” until they find it. It helps explain the popularity of some religious cult heroes — whether wackos or well-coiffed preachers — who will speak with authority and with confidence that they are absolutely right.

We say we want grace. But most don’t. Real grace — God’s grace! — is radical, unfair, against-the-grain. It messes with our addiction.

From a distance, we like to condemn the elder brother. Up close and personal, however, we secretly cheer him on.

- – - -

It’s been an interesting 27 years to be a preacher in Churches of Christ. There have been so many transitions, so many challenges.

Along the way, I’ve learned a little about the importance of congregational discernment. I’ve witnessed the wisdom of Luke Timothy Johnson’s Scripture & Discernment: Decision Making in the Church and Religious Experience in Earliest Christianity. He points out that in Acts 15, it is the experience of God’s new work among the Gentiles that caused the Jewish leaders to accept them sans circumcision (eventually with some rather creative readings of scripture).

There are so many wonderful young ministers I’ve gotten to know. They are well-trained; they’re passionate about the mission of God in this world (eschewing the kind of rapture theology that has dominated — even among those who don’t believe in the rapture!); and they’re devoted to personal and congregational discernment.

Good days are ahead. I’ll be cheering these young men and women along!