I once worked for a company that was very good at holding meetings. Some of the managers in that company could spend their entire work day in meetings. The problem was that most of the meetings were internally focused and too often the needs of the customers were ignored.

The church faces a similar challenge, we can get so focused on church stuff that we forget to interact with the world around us. I’ve seen this happen in two ways.

The first is where a church gets focused on defining the distinction between being worldly or being spiritual. The determination is that this style of clothing is spiritual, this other style is not. This haircut is acceptable, the other one is not. The debate is centered on what is acceptable practice, with the intent of pleasing God. The problem is that because they feel that their practice puts them in a better standing with God, they can look down on those who are less acceptable. Were it not so prevalent in Evangelicalism, this stance would be laughable because the Jesus they claim to worship hung out with hookers, terrorists, traitors and longshoremen.

The second way that I’ve seen churches get focused on church stuff is when there is an overemphasis on theological correctness. Don’t get me wrong, being meticulous in theological understanding should be a good thing. The problem comes when theological correctness is an end rather than a means.

Good theology is intended to deepen our understanding and our love of God. Good theology is not intended to be a litmus test to determine with whom we will fellowship. When theology becomes and end rather than a means, nothing good comes from it.

Jesus did not look down on anyone because of their lack of theological nuance. What did get Jesus angry was theology that lost track of the whole point of theological study. In John 8:42, Jesus confronts the Pharisees on this very point. The Pharisees claim to represent God, but were so off track that they could not recognize that Jesus had come from the very God that the Pharisees claimed to worship.

When the world looks at the church and sees something different than the Christ we claim to worship they have a legitimate reason to criticize us. Neither our theology nor our practice should prevent us from emulating the Christ we see in the Gospels.

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1, ESV)

On my morning commute I heard Johnny Cash sing about being free from the chain gang. One line from the song struck me: “I got rid of the shackles that bound me and the guards that were always around me.”

It made me think of a recent conversation with some friends that came out of a legalistic Pentecostal church. The wife was condemned for the grievous sins of cutting her hair and wearing slacks. The pretext for this condemnation comes from a flawed understanding of Paul’s guidelines in 1 Corinthians 11.

If I rightly understand 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is not concerned with establishing a particular fashion for women in the church. He is instead, pointing out that the behavior of the women in the Church in Corinth should not cause those outside the church to think them to be socially inappropriate. In other words, they were not to allow their freedom to be expressed in ways that would damage the reputation of Christ among those who do not yet know him.

How ironic is it that those who use an over literal interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11 end up doing the exact thing that Paul seeks to avoid. By their literal interpretation, they succeed in making the church look odd.

It does not matter what the particular issue is, legalism is a form of bondage. Yet as Paul reminds us in Galatians 5:1, we are not to allow ourselves to be put in the chain gang of legalism. The whole point of a chain gang was that every prisoner had to be in lock step with the man before him and behind him. They had to move as a unit because of the chains.

The chain gang is a fitting picture to illustrate what legalistic churches do to their people. They put shackles upon them and force them into certain behaviors that will identify them with the group. In the Galatian Church, the issue was circumcision, in my friends’ church, the issue was women’s hair style, it other churches it is movies, jewelry, dancing, Bible version, music, dress length, wearing of suits and ties, not wearing suits and ties, speaking in tongues, not speaking in tongues, the list of behaviors that can be turned into the chains of legalism is endless.

There are some behaviors that The Bible clearly indicates are inappropriate for followers of Christ. Paul addresses one such behavior in I Corinthians 5. I am not advocating that there be no standards of behavior. But where we go wrong is when we take our preferences, or perhaps even our own personal convictions and make them standards by which other must live. We may have good reasons for our own behavioral boundaries, but those reasons may not apply to our brother or sister.

Can we have enough faith in God to allow him to direct his people on issues where Scripture is not clear? For example, drunkenness is condemned in Scripture but consumption of alcohol is not. For reasons that are particular to me, I have the conviction that I should not consume alcohol. But I cannot, based on my reasons, inflict my personal standard on others when Scripture provides no justification to do so.

In the same way, if a woman feels that she should not cut her hair or wear pants, I cannot say she is wrong for holding to that standard. But this would not give her the freedom to condemn those who do not hold to that conviction.

We have freedom. Let us live as though we do and allow others to live in freedom.