The Dreaded Disease of Pietism

I heard the story of how there was once a pastor who was preaching a series on Jesus being the “perfect” human and still fully divine. The pastor was especially fired up in one of the sermons and challenged anyone in his congregation to tell him if they knew or knew of anyone who was perfect. To this challenge, one man stood up. The man said that, yes he did know someone who was perfect. The pastor stood amazed. Who could believe that there was anyone, other than Jesus who was perfect? The pastor pressed the man to explain and tell everyone who this person was who was perfect. The man replied, “According to my wife, her first husband who is now deceased was perfect!”
Who is perfect? Can anyone totally keep the law in both heart and action? That is the question the apostle Paul dealt with in the letter to the Romans 3. Paul says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one…no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin… righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
The reason that I bring out this point is that too many people think that once you become a Christian “you should be perfect.” Either the new Christian feels that somehow they have failed because they have suddenly not changed overnight or the non-Christian believes that Christians see themselves as perfect and others as imperfect and therefore, superior to those who do not attend church. Quite the contrary! Christians struggle with sin each day, for the rest of their lives.
I will never forget one particular Sunday in my early ministry. I had just preached a sermon on sin when a woman came to the door and proudly proclaimed that “she used to sin… but she grew out of it!” To this day I am still not sure just what she thinks sin is! In their book, Un-Christian, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons tell us that this pietistic understanding of Christianity is exactly one of the reasons non-churched people stay away from the church. Self righteousness is a result of a core belief that “good” behavior elevates an individual to a higher status before God. Ironically, that concept is totally wrong and is exactly what Paul says is the gospel. Good works do not matter if they are not a by-product of faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.
As a pastor, I find that there are people who think that I, not just Jesus, should be perfect. Not long ago, I got upset when a basketball game my son was playing in got out of hand and became overly physical and rough. When he was thrown to the ground for the third time, I stated that I thought the call resembled male cow manure… but I didn’t quite say it that way. Someone near heard me and acted as if I had slapped their mama! No, I was not proud. In fact, I apologized, but it didn’t seem to matter. I am a preacher, and for some people that means I should be very close to perfect. I wish that were true, but I and every other preacher out there is just like you… a sinner fallen short. If we in the church can come to grips with our own reality and decide that we have a lot in common with “those sinners” we might be better off and we might have a chance to see Jesus’ church grow.