An astonishing discussion is happening here, here, and here concerning Christian schools and rules. Dave Doran comments on it here and offers a two part article on legalism as a partial response. The article is well worth reading (follow the links at Dave’s site), although I don’t entirely accept his conclusions about Pharisaism at the end of the article. The bulk of the argument against the verbal hand grenade, ‘legalism’, is excellent.
The author of the SI articles sums up his thesis this way:
While there are doubtless many fine Christian schools which do not operate in a legalistic fashion, I believe the majority of Christian schools operate with these three fallacious legalistic premises prominent in their thinking.
- Man-made rules that prevent violations of God’s rules have inherent spiritual value (which I will address here in Part 1).
- Rules promote godliness, in that behavior change leads to heart change.
- Enforcement of righteousness is valid and valuable as a first step to sanctification.
This thesis can be summed up like this: The majority of Christian schools use rules illegitimately as a means for achieving the spiritual goal of sanctification.
Is this true? Is sanctification the rationale behind the ‘code of conduct’ in any school? Should it be?
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