VIRUS OF LEGALISM
THRIVES IN CHRISTENDOM, AUTHOR SAYS
By Mark Ellis
Monday, June 21,
2004
PASADENA,
CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- He was on
a performance-based treadmill that sucked the
life out of his religious experience. Then he discovered news that was
almost too-good-to-be-true—God’s amazing grace.
“I’ve existed
in the swamps of legalism,” says Greg Albrecht, executive
director of Plain Truth Ministries, and author of “Bad News Religion:
The Virus That Attacks God’s Grace” (World Publishing). “To be
Christ-centered is to live in His grace,” Albrecht says. “Many of us
are not experiencing that.”
He believes
many Christians are not at rest in their faith. “We’re
troubled, worried, bothered, and upset,” he observes. “Unfortunately,
much of that comes from religious legalism.”
Albrecht
spent over 30 years in Herbert W. Armstrong’s
Worldwide Church of God before his mother came to him one day in tears
and tried to persuade him they were involved in a cult. “I was a true
believer,” he writes in his book, “and although I knew that many people
in the world thought Armstrongism was a cult, I knew better.” Albrecht
had become an ordained minister in the church, taught classes at the
college run by Armstrong, and pastored over 500 young people as dean of
students.
After
Armstrong’s death in 1986, Albrecht began a heart wrenching
discovery process that led him to conclude Armstrong’s house—and his
own--were built on sand. It should be noted that after Armstrong died,
leaders in the Worldwide Church of God began to realize that many of
his doctrines were not biblical and also rejected those teachings, just
as Albrecht did. Today the church is in agreement with the statement of
faith of the National Association of Evangelicals.
“I came
to the painful awareness that I had never known Jesus,”
Albrecht writes in his book. “I was a religious professional.” Although
Albrecht once taught a college class called “Life and Teachings of
Jesus,” he suddenly realized he never knew the real Jesus.
“All
my life I had been an actor, just reading the
script,” he adds. “The only thing that any religion that is not based
on God’s grace can do is to help you read your lines, obey the rules
and jump through the hoops it prescribes.”
While
Albrecht saw the cultic nature of Armstrong’s teachings, he was
also offended by a legalistic environment that required him to “to be
more righteous, be better, work harder, give, serve, qualify, improve,
and do more” to earn God’s favor.
After
leaving Armstrong’s church, Albrecht was startled to find similar
thinking in mainstream churches. “Coming out of Armstrongism and coming
to Christ, the amazing thing I find is degrees of the same kind of
legalism existing and thriving within Christendom,” Albrecht says.
“Many in churches not labeled as cults are nonetheless enslaved by some
degree of legalistic teaching.”
In the book, Albrecht
quotes C.S. Lewis: “If the divine call does not make us better, it will
make us very much worse. Of all bad men, religious bad men are the
worst.” Albrecht believes grace to be “religion’s” worst enemy. He
defines religion as any system of rules and regulations that promises
to increase a person’s standing with God on the basis of their actions.
(Pictured: Book
cover
of Bad News Religion. Christians have trouble
accepting God’s grace. The result is a “Bad News Religion” that drains
joy and life from believers. This book is a call for Christians to
shift the focus from our own religious efforts back to the work of God
and his grace).
Albrecht
has talked with some pastors concerned that if they emphasize
grace too much, they will lose control of their congregations. “What
are they worried about, that they’ll lose control to Jesus?” he asks.
“If you preach grace, holiness will be given as an outworking of the
Holy Spirit,” he maintains. “Jesus will work in them and holiness will
result.”
“There
is no system to control humans or guarantee humans
won’t sin,” Albrecht notes. “Those who preach grace and those who live
grace will fall—that’s the scandal of grace,” he says. Jesus gives us
freedom knowing His children will stumble.
Mainstream
churches often use legalistic rhetoric such as: “Of course
we are saved by grace. But what does God expect us to do once he saves
us?” In these churches, messages on grace are often followed by a
legalistic “counterpunch”—messages that center on external acts and
behaviors that should be followed to gain God’s favor.
“Preaching
and teaching that judges Christians solely upon external
actions almost inevitably leads to manipulation for the purpose of
creating guilt and shame,” Albrecht notes. He views this as an absolute
contradiction to the gospel of Jesus, which should be based on faith
alone, grace alone and Christ alone.
The
truth most find difficult to believe is this: nothing
you can do will make God love you any more or any less than He already
does.
Albrecht
believes the most effective way to counter the seduction of
legalism is to center one’s faith, practice, and devotion on the cross
of Christ. “The cross of Christ is the sign of the end of
performance-based religion,” he writes. “The cross of Christ is the
sign that our relationship with God is no longer defined by externals
but by the internal working of God in our hearts and minds.”
Mark Ellis is a Senior Correspondent for
ASSIST News Service. He is also an assistant pastor in Laguna Beach,
CA. Contact Ellis at marsalis@fea.net
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