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God Bless the Offended Legalist (Part 1)

Jun 11th, 2010
by Michael Krahn.

Part 1 - My Story
Part 2 - A Biblical Theology of Offending Your Brother
Part 3 – How to Offend a Legalist and Not Sin

Part 1 – My Story

Strike up a conversation about a contentious issue with a group of Christians and you’re bound to visit Romans 14 somewhere along the way. This is a chapter in the Bible that deals with believers judging one another and not causing each other to “stumble.”

Where I come from the word “stumble” was defined very, very loosely. It meant roughly “anything I don’t like, disagree with, makes me uncomfortable or insecure, might cause people to think you’re strange, etc.” It was used as a precision tool in the hands of people seeking to control the lives and actions of others.

Defined this way it is the ultimate control mechanism. “Don’t do that, you’re causing me to stumble!” was used to keep us from everything from tattoos to alcohol to “spiked” hair.

The logic of the argument ran like this: If something you’re about to do will offend another Christian, don’t do it.

Seems fair, seems simple, and it worked for a while, but applying it consistently revealed a few challenges to my maturing logic:

  1. What qualifies as “offense” or “causing someone to stumble”?
  2. Is it just in the offended person’s presence that I can’t do this or all the time?
  3. If I only abstain around those who are offended but participate when they’re not around, doesn’t that make me a hypocrite?
  4. By the time we stop doing all the things people say are causing them to stumble, what’s left?

It took me a good while to discover nuance in the passage and until I did I had to live with my guilty conscience since there were things I engaged in that people were “offended” by that I was pretty sure God had no problem with.

So I did them anyway, concluding that if I stopped doing everything that anyone in the church found offensive I might as well stay in my room all day, every day – unless, of course, it was discovered that someone in the church was offended by solitude.

Then what?

Part 2 - A Biblical Theology of Offending Your Brother




Posted in: Bible, Church, D. A. Carson, Friends, Humour, Jesus.

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  • Mark

    I think I may find your post offensive.

    It may or may not cause me to stumble because I may find myself thinking or even questioning what I think is really right or wrong.

    It may challenge me, and so I am almost certain that I will somehow stumble and the bubble I am living in will burst.

    I think I am stumbling just by reading it. Or maybe the thoughts that happened afterward caused me to stumble.

    Yup I am now offended and stumbling – how dare you?

    You better remove this post.

  • Warren

    I am curious how such a weird and distorted idea ever took root. And it sure did.

    I grew up in wave after wave of fear and loathing. My childhood landscape was littered with ‘slippery slopes’, and there were ‘stumbling blocks’ everywhere. Inarticulate moral theologians of my day made up for what they lacked in logic and sense, by speaking more loudly, and becoming more quickly angry. Of course I’m right; Can’t you see the vein in my temple throbbing?

    Odd to realize that remnants of that old evangelical subculture are still out there, and that some of these old lines and passive-aggressive (or plain old aggressive) techniques are still being used.

    W

  • Bill Janzen

    Well put Mike. I’m looking forward to further installments.

  • http://www.kevinabell.blogspot.com Kevin Abell

    Were you thinking of me when you mentioned tattoos? Aw. That was sweet of you.

  • Bill Janzen

    In regards to the tattoo issue, it’s one I’m always happy to discuss, seeing as how I’m a former youth pastor and, Lord willing, will be a senior pastor sometime in the relatively near future, and I also have 4 tattoos.

    This site explains my views on it very well:
    http://christianity.about.com/od/faqhelpdesk/f/tattoochristian.htm

  • http://michaelkrahn.com/blog/2010/06/14/god-bless-the-offended-legalist-2-a-biblical-theology-of-offending-your-brother/ God Bless the Offended Legalist (2) – A Biblical Theology of Offending Your Brother – Michael Krahn : The Ascent to Truth

    [...] 1 – My Story Part 2 – A Biblical Theology of Offending Your Brother Part 3 – How to Offend a Legalist and Not [...]

  • http://michaelkrahn.com/blog/2010/06/15/god-bless-the-offended-legalist-3-how-to-offend-a-legalist-and-not-sin/ God Bless the Offended Legalist (3) – How to Offend a Legalist and Not Sin – Michael Krahn : The Ascent to Truth

    [...] 1 – My Story Part 2 – A Biblical Theology of Offending Your Brother Part 3 – How to Offend a Legalist and Not [...]

  • http://www.michaelkrahn.com/blog Michael Krahn

    Warren, a pivotal part of my journey out of what you describe was a certain BBS back in the day called “Shadowlands”.

    Thanks for that. I still have dot matrix printouts on computer paper saved from things you said there.