Evangelism-driven legalism

Peter Dray has just posted a typically pastorally perceptive post on what he terms 'Evangelism-driven legalism'. You should read it.

In it he shares his concerns about quite how we sometimes argue like this:

• Unbelievers will have the gospel commended to them by Christian behaviour, and so will want to ask questions of Christians.
• Therefore make an effort to impress non-believers by your behaviour - this might take various forms: be outgoing, be generous at work, arrive early at church to chat to newcomers... and so on.

I think it worth thinking about at length. Because the argument is correct and true, but yet it so often does lead people to a place of crushing legalism. As Peter rightly points out the only way we can teach this truth, without it leading to nasty consequences, is by always teaching it in a context soaked in grace.

One thing Peter only touches on, but I think flows out of this, are the consequences for what we mean by attractive holy lives. As sinners, holiness is as much about how we react to our sin, as how we avoid sinning. What is more attractive than someone who is open about their failings, but who keeps trying to change; someone who is pained by the consequences of their sin, but always full of confident joy that they have been forgiven?

The Dark Knight and Wall-E

Reviews of The Dark Knight to make you think:

• Peter Dray: are we 'able to keep to our own moral frameworks, particularly when placed under intense pressure'? and is vigilantism a moral response to evil?
• Chris Oldfield: action is absurd but everything, chance is fairness. The joker resembles Nietzsche's madman, who has seen the consequences of the death of God.
• Mark Kermode: one moral set piece too many, one character too many.

I'm still waiting for the similarly thoughtful reviews of Wall-E, so I'll try my hand at the film reviewing lark myself.... SPOILERS ALERT.. I'll assume readers have seen the film (because you should).

I love Pixar films and this one is exceptional. In contrast to The Dark Knight it was beautiful in it's simplicity, although it had plenty of ideas of it's own. Bizarrely it had both a very positive and very negative view of humanity. In the future humanity is lazy to the point that they never stand up and communicate with each other only through screens. They drift (literally) through life not creating but only consuming passively what the all dominant faceless corporation tells them to. However, everyone is very polite to each other and the robots, and once forced to question the direction of their lives they come up with the 'right answer' immediately, setting their faces to renewing the world they had abandoned as a garbage heap.

The morality behind the film is not hard to discern and some reviewers have found it to grate a little. Clearly, we should all care for the environment and our bodies. Who is going to disagree with that! However, most reviewers have stopped there and so had problems linking the first half of the film on Earth with the second in space. But to me the two halves are essential to the film as a whole. To have missed out the second half (as Mark Kermode would have liked) would have led to missing out the central theme of the film.

Wall-E after 700 years on earth has exceeded his programming and discovered what is most important. He values other things (as art), other people (or at least cockroaches) and he values himself (repairing himself while all his brothers died). He is really living, but longing to share his life with another. With Eve he finds the love that he has been longing for and doggedly pursues her because of this. This brings Wall-E and Eve together on the human ship where they show the humans how to be truly human. The humans enthusiastically embrace this new (or old) kind of life that they have forgotten and the charming titles at the end show them repeating the creative achievements of the last 2000 years.

By the end of Wall-E the relationships between humans and creation have been healed and humanity is (unconsciously) imaging our creative and caring God again. It is a beautiful, fantastical film. But it is fantastical. Wall-E depicts humans as having drifted out of the way they were made to live, but having now learnt their lesson.

I see much to love in the message of Wall-E. However, I know that our drifting into sin is not entirely unintentional, and our turning from it is not as easy. I also know that as long as our primary relationship to our Father is broken we cannot fix our relationships with each other or creation.

We can't rely on robots to save humanity and then show us the way to live. We need a more powerful saviour, a better example to follow and new heart to enable us to do it. We also need to experience that greater love, and greater relationship that we were made for; and until we do we will be like Wall-E watching old VHS videos but longing for the reality.

Quotable: Peter Dray on lukewarm faith

I think often our answer to feeling lukewarm as Christians is to somehow try and whip ourselves up into a frenzy. I remember chatting to a friend a few months ago who felt lukewarm who was trying to take just this course of action. Jesus commands something very different to the church in Laodicea - not 'make yourself passionate', but repent. (source)