November 29, 2008

Pharisees' forbidden words

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HT: Brooke!

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at 8:11 AM

10 comments:

  1. Lydia McGrew12/01/2008 5:44 PM

    You know, I didn't really agree with his whole approach. There is something unpleasant in his manner. Is a major challenge facing Christianity right now that set of people who consider it crude to use the word 'fart' in public? I mean, you know, it just doesn't seem to me that's worth a rant. By the time he got to the middle of his routine and was literally prancing around the stage with an incredibly sneering voice talking about "poor little milk-drinking babies"--presumably referring to Christians who don't believe in drinking alcoholic beverages--I shrugged and clicked the exit button.

    Mind you, I drink an occasional glass of wine and don't believe that the ban on it is required of Christians. But I have a lot of respect for those people who see the dangers and have thus put in place absolute teetotalism. And I think it's positively a good idea for college campuses, for prudential reasons, to be "dry."

    I guess it was mainly this particular person's attitude that I didn't appreciate. I guess it was supposed to be a comedy routine, but it didn't strike me as funny. And as a matter of fact the far greater danger these days is an _absence_ of standards. His talk reminded me of what Screwtape says about how the Devil's tactic is to warn everybody about exactly the opposite danger of the one they really need to worry about in their own particular time period.

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  2. Richard D12/01/2008 6:25 PM

    Lydia - I understand and agree with much of what you said here. However, I was uncomfortable with his use of that word in his routine, which proved the point he was making. Because it really is not a bad word.

    But the reason I posted the clip was what he said at the end of it--after you clicked away from it. You might want to go back in and slide the slider over to where you left off and watch it from there.

    I'll let you see what he has to say if you're interested. But for my part, the folks you've mentioned regarding total abstinence from alcohol are fine as long as they keep it to themselves and never press their views on others or present their view as the more holy view. Those who present abstinence from alcohol in those ways are sinning against God and against whomever they're speaking to when they present their anti-biblical holiness. They are the modern day equivalent of the people that Jesus called "white washed tombs" whose mouths were "open graves."

    I would agree that there is a great need for a return to civility in language among Christians. But I think the greater need in the Christian community is for us to cultivate our personal commitment to holiness and righteousness and to stop worrying about what others are doing as long as they are not violating direct scriptural commands or prohibitions. And when they are violating those things, we need to make sure we confront them in love and not judgmentally.

    I tend to be somewhat judgmental against those who are doing something I think is wrong and I tend to worry entirely too much about things that are completely cultural and not at all biblical.

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  3. Lydia McGrew12/01/2008 8:46 PM

    Well, it looks like I only exited about twenty seconds before the end. At the very, very end he says something hard to hear like "I can't stinkin' compete when my own people are actin' like crazy people." Something like that that I don't get and probably am not hearing right. But I think you might be thinking of the earlier point where he says, "We've become the Pharisees."

    You know, I think the way one reacts to something like the belief that it's always wrong to drink any alcoholic beverage depends on whether one is subjected to it in a way that really impacts one's life. To be clearer, it's probably easier for me to be tolerant of the extremely strong views on drinking with which I was raised because I am in no way subject to them anymore. They don't really impinge upon my life except in the sense that I have some friends and relatives who think that way, and I have to be careful when they come to my house so that they aren't offended. But nobody can really make me uncomfortable over it or penalize me for it. For example, I don't have to take a pledge never to drink a glass of wine in order to belong to my church. So I can sort of look at it tolerantly and from a distance and, as it were, think like a conservative cultural blogger: "Wouldn't the world be in a lot of ways a much better place if we had a lot more people like the X family who think it's always wrong to drink? Yes, it would." I would probably get a lot more irritated if I really had to navigate the strict fundamentalist world more in my own life.

    Still, I can't feel that his approach is the right one. It seems to me unlikely that any young person is going to be influenced by his approach to loosen up "enough but not too much." It seems to me more likely that young people are going to use a bitter, would-be-funny routine like that just as an excuse to go off and do things that really are unquestionably wrong and unbiblical, or that they will be started on that path. There are certainly enough cultural influences around to help them on their way if they once get started feeling like "breaking categories" and trying to shock people, that's for sure! If a person really has a problem with rigidity that one is trying to help, it seems to me a civil conversation on the topic ("Wine is not wrong and was indeed commonly drunk during Biblical times, including by the Lord Jesus. Drunkenness is wrong. In our culture, the world often does not make this distinction, but as Christians we must do so. That way we don't bind our Christian liberty incorrectly but we also don't go off and get drunk at keg parties") would work better than his particular style of mockery. Or at the most some _gentle_ humor, which his is not.

    I myself have sat with a carefully straight face through an unintentionally hilarious skit (at our homeschool Talent Night) about how it's wrong to say "darn." My family had a good laugh about it together in the privacy of our own home, and I've made a few comments about it on e-mail and on the Internet, because it really was rather funny. But I would be careful not to stand up in front of an audience like he does and talk in that particular tone of voice that he uses about the people who put on the skit. Not only are they my sisters in Christ, they are real salt of the earth people, and I'm proud to know them.

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  4. Richard D12/01/2008 9:32 PM

    I agree that his presentation was not the best. However, that is the way of humor. Humorous things hit people differently and work and don't work at the same time with different people. His presentation is definitely intended for a crowd significantly younger than we are. In fact, this video was commended to me by someone in her early teens.

    Regarding the alcohol debate (and all other debates about lifestyle) we cannot do better than God. So we need to be very, very careful to not impose our beliefs on others when we are not able to clearly back them up with scripture.

    I think much of the current Emergent movement (which causes me no end of grief) sprung from a desire to throw off the unbiblical and even anti-biblical fundamentalism. We like to impose our beliefs about what people can and can't drink, what people must and must not wear, how people should worship, what version of the bible they must or must not use. These things are not Christianity. They are man-made religion and anti-Christ.

    Although this video will not likely by itself direct young people down a straight and narrow path of commitment to Christ in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free, I don't believe it will by itself cause young people to throw off all boundaries and eject common sense.

    We all need to model very clearly to our young people that their only guide to the Christian life must be the bible. Men never tire of creating new laws for others to live by. But liberty Christ purchased for us is a liberty from the shackles of sin to the freedom of striving hard to be like Christ. If we model that, comedians who may rub us the wrong way will filter into our young people's minds through the biblical paradigm that they have modeled after us.

    It's a tremendous and difficult job. But using the shortcut of creating our own standards of holiness in order to corral the young people to our vision of righteousness is false hope at best and blatant sin. We know better.

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  5. Mary Fuller12/02/2008 7:11 AM

    Have either of you ever watched an entire Brad Stein video?? We have them in our church library and have checked out quite a few. I have some favorite Christian comedians (and commediennes) but Brad Stein is not one of them. I like certain things that he has done, but almost all of his humor is "edgy" and "ranting". To my tender spirit, that is unsettling. I also get tired of "tennis neck" watching him pace back and forth on the stage.



    He tells the story on this particular video (forbidden words)of leaving Hollywood behind and feeling like a failure when he made the move to Tennessee. It's a really neat story, and if you can find it anywhere, I'd recommend it.

    However, Brad has some excellent commentaries on American culture. You need to watch any of his routines about "put a helmet on". They are downright hilarious and so very true!! If you haven't heard Go Fish's "Christmas with a Capital C", you can hear it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAckfn8yiAQ Brad is heard on the track doing his "Merry Christmas" routine.

    Although I found this particular "forbidden words" skit crude, I am SOOO in agreement with his assessment. I came from a church up north where there were "rules" of Christianity that made everyone comfortable. Godliness was determined by your adherence to this list. But what I found were people who didn't go very deep into their relationship with Christ because it was too risky. They preferred to stick to the list and hold you up to it as well. I am SOOOO enjoying the south because these people are people of the Word. They take risks in their journey when it means they will be following Christ where He is leading -- even if "the list" doesn't permit it.

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  6. Lydia McGrew12/02/2008 9:36 AM

    The thing is, when the Bible says (for example), "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers," it doesn't tell the original audience what counts as corrupt communication. But I imagine they had some idea, in terms of their culture. Otherwise the biblical injunction was pointless. I agree totally that it's very possible to be too rigid and that lots of people are. But I'm not so comfortable with criticizing over-rigidity with the term "unbiblical," simply for this reason: Any application of a biblical principle is going to involve looking at things like the way language is actually used in one's own culture and deciding that this is how the principle applies. That's as true of really filthy language (and, yes, there is such a thing as really filthy language) as it is of a harmless word like 'fart' or 'darn'. So it seems to me that we're all trying to be biblical but just that different Christians have different ideas of how to apply what Scripture really does say. Something similar is true of modesty. I could exaggerate: The Bible doesn't _say_ that it's immodest for a girl literally to walk down the road totally naked, and yet I think we can agree that, in our culture, that certainly would be immodest. So we decide how to apply the clear Biblical injunction to women to be modest. That's in a sense _being_ Biblical, because otherwise we're just ignoring what the Bible says altogether. But it requires a present application that isn't just handed to us. And of course people disagree on where to draw the line. But I don't know that I can say to my friends who think girls should never wear pants (with which I don't agree), "You're being unbiblical" anymore than they should tell me I'm being unbiblical for saying that it is immodest for a woman to walk about with, er, her bare rear end quite literally showing over the top of her jeans in the back. The Bible doesn't list these things, but that doesn't mean we can't make good judgements about them, and in fact we have to do so to apply Scripture at all.

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  7. Richard D12/02/2008 10:09 AM

    Mary - I love that video you provided the link for. It is scheduled to appear on this blog on December 15th. Thanks.

    Lydia - I agree with essentially everything you've said, except that all of the things you mentioned here are things we need be concerned with regarding ourselves--not regarding others. It is absolutely unbiblical to demand our personal standards of others. Biblical standards, yes; but personal standards, absolutely not. In fact, I believe it is taking the place of the Holy Spirit. And I don't think it's wise for us to say "I will be like the most high God," which is what we are saying when we presume to convict others of extrabiblical standards.

    We should share where God is convicting us personally, and perhaps God will use what we share with our friends and family to convict them of the same things. And maybe He won't. If He does not convict them that way, we should follow His lead and forget about it.

    We can certainly force certain standards through the legislative and judicial process in our nation, and we should attempt to provide community standards that fit what we have been convicted of. Thus the prohibitions against public nudity.

    But that also points out the importance of evangelistic outreach, because in a democratic republic such legislation will be guided by a majority and if the majority disagrees with scripture, we're not going to be able to guide the community according to our personal standards.

    Regarding corrupt communication, we must attempt to edify the brethren. That edification could be seen as always being sickly sweet and never saying anything that could give offense. That would eliminate ever confronting someone involved in blatant sin. We could view it as saying things that proclaim the truths of God and not just saying things that spring from our own opinions. If that is our view of non-corrupt communication, then the video in this post fits the definition of edifying speech giving grace to the hearers because it encourages Christians to dump their extrabiblical traditions--something Christ called his followers and opponents to regularly.

    I think the book of Galatians indicates that we should call to task those who are over-rigid. It is not good for Christians to develop their own standards of righteousness. In fact, I think it is wise for folks who follow hard after extra-biblical standards of righteousness to consider seriously whether or not they are actually saved. The end result is way too important for us to overlook their "little" sin of seeking favor from God based on their works.

    In the right column of this blog there is a quote from Martin Luther that directly addresses those who are overly rigid in their application of personal standards, and I think it is fitting to this conversation - so here it is:

    "There are some who have no understanding to hear the truth of freedom and insist upon their goodness as means for salvation. These people you must resist, do the very opposite, and offend them boldly lest by their impious views they drag many with them into error. For the sake of liberty of the faith do other things which they regarded as the greatest of sins… use your freedom constantly and consistently in the sight of and despite the tyrants and stubborn so that they may learn that they are impious, that their law and works are of no avail for righteousness, and that they had no right to set them up." --Martin Luther

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  8. Lydia McGrew12/02/2008 3:43 PM

    Would you be inclined to say the same thing about confronting someone who is "using his liberty as a cloak of maliciousness"--say, someone who uses really, deep-dyed, horrible language all the time, or someone who displays semi-pornographic pictures on his personal web site? That sort of person might be raising questions about whether he is truly saved as well, I would think, and might need for his own sake to be confronted, as well.

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  9. Richard D12/02/2008 4:17 PM

    Would you be inclined to say the same thing about confronting someone who is "using his liberty as a cloak of maliciousness"

    No - if someone is doing that, they are directly violating scripture. What I'm saying is that we cannot demand adherence to things God has not demanded.

    say, someone who uses really, deep-dyed, horrible language all the time, or someone who displays semi-pornographic pictures on his personal web site?

    In this case, which is not the same as the first quote because in this case I don't know the person's heart, I would do what I have described in earlier comments. I would share with him what God has convicted me personally of regarding those activities and I would also pray that God would convict him where necessary--not where I feel is necessary, but where God deems necessary. And then I would leave it up to God. I would not demand anything from him that God has not demanded in scripture because I'm pretty sure that God is better at this than I am.

    In the case of parents and children, I certainly believe that we can set extra-biblical standards for our children and demand adherence to those standards. But we must in so doing be very honest with them by telling them, "this is the standard for our family because I am the head of this household. It is not a biblical standard, but I believe it is an application of such and such biblical principle." If I am not able to provide an appropriate biblical principle from which my standard springs, I would not even require it of my children. I think it is unwise to presume that we know better than God about behavioral things.

    The situation with your example is that you're right when you say: That sort of person might be raising questions about whether he is truly saved as well, I would think, and might need for his own sake to be confronted, as well. That sort of person MIGHT be unsaved. But there is strong indication that the person demanding extra-biblical standards from others is unsaved because this is exactly what Christ confronted with the Pharisees. And he told them that they did not understand God. That's not something any of us should wait for death to hear. We need to hear it when we still have the chance to do something about it.

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  10. Richard D12/02/2008 9:07 PM

    Lydia - I have a tendency to overstate things. I use hyperbole when maybe I should not. You probably remember the man who taught me this technique—Dr. Carter.

    We certainly must encourage good behavior. I am horrified at the slide in civility in language among the myriad other things that I am not pleased about in our current culture.

    What I have tried to say in these comments is that we cannot hold our personal standards as mandatory standards for holiness. We can certainly encourage good behavior and civility, as long as we're careful to not link the behavior we encourage to holiness or righteousness. I think it is too easy for others who don't completely understand our reasons to infer that the behavior we promote is a way to garner approval from God. We must make sure that they understand that God's approval comes only through the blood of Christ.

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