Christianity needs to be woke.

WOKE woʊk verb Past tense of wake.

2. [adjective] Alert to the existence or presence of racial prejudice and discrimination.

3. [adjective] Liberal.

[Wokeism 'woʊk.ɪz.əm noun]

I first heard the term “woke” in college in the 1980s. It had been around since the 1930s or so, but it was largely confined to the black community. I heard it ’cause I had black friends and employers. They used it to describe people who had “woken up” to problems in society which they previously didn’t know about. Namely about racism.

See, you can live a really sheltered life before you get to college. Which is somewhat understandable. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s, when there was all sorts of civic unrest going on. Drug addicts in the local parks. Full-on riots, with the National Guard sent in, in the very same county. My parents didn’t want me worrying about this stuff, so they downplayed it, or made sure I saw little to none of it. I get why they did it; I approve.

The only problem I have with this behavior is when it goes on too long. And a lot of parents think it should. They’ll keep sheltering their kids well into their teenage years, arguing, “Why they’re just children.” Legally yeah; and there’s an awful lot of people who retain immature character traits well into old age. But in a very few years, your teenagers are gonna become voters. They can run for office, serve on juries, and join the military. They can become active, participating citizens, who need to know what’s going on in their world. But if they’re sheltered well into their young adult years, they’re going to have a very distorted view of the world. They’ll be horrified when they first encounter the real thing—as I witnessed many times when I went to bible college, and watched my homeschooled classmates struggle mightily when we ministered to the needy, the homeless, and the kids in juvenile hall. They weren’t at all prepared for the world Jesus calls us to minister to.

Y’see, they’d been asleep. And many of them still choose to stay asleep.

Institutional racism continues to be a problem in the United States. It’s a problem I was far too unaware of when I was a kid, ’cause I assumed—’cause I was taught—the racism problem was solved! The Voting Rights Act was passed before I was even born. Racial discrimination was illegal. I lived near military bases, and lookit all our multiethnic soldiers!—they worked together, race notwithstanding, and proved racism was abolished. (Of course I never asked how many officers were nonwhite at that time. Sheltered kids never learn which questions to ask.)

So how’d I become aware of it? I had nonwhite friends. I saw people discriminate against ’em. Sometimes—but seldom; they didn’t always think they could trust me—they told me stories of people discriminating against ’em. Mexican and Filipino and black friends getting the cops called on ’em just because some white neighbor thought, “Oh they must be in a gang.” Or hearing racial slurs from other kids in our school who moved here from predominantly white towns, and brought their racism with them. Or seeing teachers, school administrators, civic authorities, and pastors treat them with low expectations simply because they weren’t white.

I was already kinda “woke” when I got to college, so the teachers didn’t have to convince me. But man alive, were there some white students who were resistant to the idea racism still exists. “Well I never saw any of that happen in my community.” Well you aren’t the baseline for how “normal” is defined, sweetie. (Plus you’re just a bit racist yourself.)

White people largely hadn’t heard the term “woke” until the 2010s, when the Black Lives Matter protests started up, and the term worked its way into the mainstream. And because not everyone bothered to find out what “woke” means—same as pretty much every new word people stumble across—a number of conservatives presume “wokeism” is just another word for the left-wing agenda. It means political correctness, or identity politics, or liberalism in general; it means anything and everything they don’t like.

Thing is, there are plenty of conservatives who are entirely aware what “woke” actually means, and know it doesn’t mean identity politics, or liberalism in general. They’re entirely aware it’s about anti-racism. We know this ’cause they say so… when they’re put under oath.

My religion is Jesus.

From time to time I deal with people who love to bash “religion.”

They come in many stripes. When they’re pagan, “religion” typically means organized religion—by which they mean church, temple, or mosque. More specifically, the religion’s leaders—and even more specifically, religious leaders who tell them, “Do this, not that—and if you keep doing that, you’ll go to hell.” Except these religious leaders themselves do that; they’re hypocrites. Ah, but they have a loophole for themselves; they’re forgiven, or have a special dispensation from God which lets ’em sin; some kind of religious double standard which permits shepherds to rape their sheep. Pagans presume every religion works this way, so they want none of it. I don’t blame them for not wanting that kind of religion, obviously. But they’re describing cults. That’s bad religion, not good. My church isn’t that way. Many aren’t. Jesus himself surely isn’t.

When they’re Evangelical, “religion” typically means dead religion. That’s how “religion” has been defined in conservative Evangelical churches for the past 50 years: There’s no living relationship with Christ Jesus; there’s just busywork. There’s bible-reading, but no Holy Spirit guiding you. There’s bible studies, but those are just book clubs in which you talk about it without trying to follow what it says. There’s church functions, like fundraisers and potlucks and feeding the needy, but is Jesus really there in your midst? There’s worship, but between the rote prayers and Christian pop songs, is the Holy Spirit even in the building?

Hence these Evangelicals claim it’s significantly different for them: Unlike other churchgoers, they have a relationship. With Jesus. He’s their guy! He’s gonna save them, let them into his kingdom, and in the meanwhile help them achieve little victories over their domestic life, their finances, and help their favorite politicians get elected. Their lives are gonna change for the better!

Cool; so what steps do they have to take to help Jesus out? Well there we uncover the fact their “relationships” are entirely one-sided. Jesus is gonna do for them… and they aren’t gonna do jack squat for him. They figure because Jesus does the entire work of saving them, he’s also gonna do the entire work of everything, and they needn’t lift a finger, nor reform their behavior, nor repent in any meaningful way. They’ll just magically, automatically become more Christian. They’ll just naturally think like Jesus. They’re thinking like Jesus right now, they reckon. Conveniently, he likes all the same things they do!

Yeah, they don’t contribute anything to this relationship. Certainly no self-discipline. They’re not religious about it! Consequently it sucks. They’re irreligious Christians. In so doing, they unwittingly fulfill all the pagans’ expectations about ill-behaved religious hypocrites. All while they insist they’re not religious—they have a relationship!

Lastly the nontheists. They don’t care what “religion” means. They think it’s all stupid, God’s imaginary, we’re wasting our time and money, and getting exploited by leaders who’ve found they can make an awful lot of money in the religion racket. Sometimes—but it’s extremely rare—I’ve met a sympathetic atheist (“Look, these preachers are totally lying to you; I’m just trying to help”). But nearly always it’s someone who likes to tear apart any religious people they find, just for the evil fun of it all.

All these groups have their own definitions of “religion.” And sometimes the definition varies from individual to individual. Hey, lots of people use words incorrectly; lookit all the people who use “literally” to mean anything but literally. So when they say “religion” they might mean any generic non-scientific belief system; they might mean a strict code of personal conduct; they might not even mean a belief system at all, but the simple pursuit of good vibes. They could mean anything. You gotta ask!

Regardless of what they mean by “religion,” they think it’s wrong or foolish, and wanna mock it. And when I call myself religious, it hits ’em right in the middle of this hangup. They wanna mock it. Whatever it is.

If I tell ’em it’s Christianity, they’ll have plenty to mock. Heck, I have plenty to mock. There’s a lot of junk in Christianity which looks nothing like Christ Jesus, even though he’s the guy it’s supposed to be centered on! Way too much Christianism masquerading as Christianity. So I can’t fault people for finding fault with it; I find fault with it a lot of times.

But y’know who I don’t find fault with? Duh; it’s Jesus.

And y’know, pagans and nontheists seldom find fault with him either. Oh, there’ll be exceptions—although a lot of times I find they’re actually finding fault with one of the many not-all-that-historical ideas of Historical Jesus which they picked up from some weird book, outlandish YouTube video, or “religion expert” who was really just talking out of his arse. Actual Jesus, as found in the gospels—no, him they like. He’s all right with them. Cue the Doobie Brothers song.

So that’s what I tell ’em. My religion is Jesus.

Not believing the women when Jesus arose.

Mark 16.9-11, Luke 24.8-11.

When Jesus undid his own death before dawn on 5 April 33, and his women followers discovered an empty sepulcher and angels informing them their Lord is alive, the first thing they rightly did was go tell the men. And the men didn’t believe them.

There’s this common modern belief that the people of the past were ignorant, and would therefore believe in any old thing. They’d believe in miracles and magic, because science hadn’t been invented yet, and they grew up hearing tales about gods and sorcerers, and crazy myths which were told to them straight-faced as if they were history. And they believed in all that stuff… so they’d believe any fanciful tale you told ’em. “Oh, a wizard did it!” or “Oh, Zeus did it!” and they’d easily swallow the story, because they lived in a dark age where this sort of thing was commonplace.

Clearly these moderns have never read myths. I did; my parents gave me children’s books which retold those old myths. (Edited for children, of course, ’cause there’s way more sex and violence in those stories than people realize. Some of ’em are worse than Judges.) One of the ancient pagan Greeks’ very favorite themes was ὕβρις/ývris, “hubris,” the kind of excessive narcissistic overconfidence which only the gods figured they were allowed to have, and regularly punished mortals for having it. Hubris shows up in a lot of Greek myths, and the most common way is by some character in a story refusing to believe. Doesn’t believe the god; doesn’t believe the magician; doesn’t believe the prophecy, or thinks he can outwit it; in general just says “no” when the gods really want him to say “yes.” So the gods smite him. Because universally, people recognize a lack of humility is a serious character flaw… that is, unless they themselves are overconfident.

The One True God isn’t a fan of hubris either: “God resists the proud, / But gives grace to the humble.” Jm 4.6, 1Pe 5.5 NKJV He’s not a fan of unteachable know-it-alls, or people who figure they know what they know, and can’t bother to hear out anyone else.

But unfortunately that’s kinda what Jesus’s students were doing when they refused to accept what Jesus’s women followers were telling them about their Lord being alive.

Mark 16.9-11 KWL

9 [Rising early on the first day of the week,

Jesus first appeared to Mary the Magdalene;

he’d previously thrown seven demons out of her.

10 Leaving, this Mary brings the news

to those who’d come to be with Jesus,

who are mourning and crying.

11 And these people, on hearing Jesus is alive,

that he was personally seen by Mary

don’t believe it.]

Luke 24.8-11 KWL

8 And the women remember Jesus’s words,

9 and, returning from the sepulcher,

the women tell all these things to the Eleven

and all the other students.

10 It was Mary the Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary of James,

and all the other women with them:

They were saying these things to the apostles.

11 The events appeared to the apostles

as if these words were a fairy tale,

and they don’t believe it.

Still, it’s kinda understandable. Dead people don’t just return from death! Yeah, Pharisees believed in resurrection, but they claimed the resurrection isn’t supposed to happen till the end of history, when God judges the world. Not now. Not yet. Dead people stay dead. Especially people suffocated by crucifixion and stabbed in the heart. You don’t recover in only three days from that; I don’t care what the conspiracy theorists claim.

True, Jesus’s students were immature teenagers, and pretty dense sometimes. But they weren’t gullible. They knew dead people stay dead. They didn’t yet know Jesus had substantially changed everything. They’d learn. But still, that’s what we have in the resurrection stories: Apostles who totally didn’t believe Jesus is alive. No matter what the women claimed.

Jesus accused with false testimonies.

Mark 14.55-59, Matthew 26.59-61,
Luke 22.66, John 2.18-22.

All my life I’ve heard preachers claim Jesus’s trial wasn’t just irregular, but downright illegal. What basis do they have for saying so? Next to none.

It’s because they interpret history wrong. They point to rulings in the second-century Mishna and the fifth-century Talmud. They assume the first-century Jewish senate actually followed these rulings. They’d be entirely wrong. The Mishna consists of Pharisee rulings and traditions. The Talmud is a Pharisee commentary on the Mishna. Now, who ran the senate in Jesus’s day? The head priests… who were Sadduccees. And the Sadducees believed Pharisee teachings were extrabiblical, which they were; and therefore irrelevant.

So when the Mishna declares trials shouldn’t take place at night (although Luke actually says it took place during daytime Lk 22.66), and declares there shouldn’t be same-day rulings, preachers nowadays declare, “Aha! This proves Jesus’s trial was illegal!” Just the opposite: It proves Sadducees did such things. The Pharisee rulings were created because they objected to the way Sadducees ran things. They were meant to correct what they considered Sadducee injustice. But Sadducee injustice was still legal.

Jesus’s trial convicted an innocent man, so of course we’re gonna agree with Pharisee teachings which claim this was an improper trial. But the teachings are from the wrong time and the wrong people. They don’t apply, much as we’d like ’em to. The Sadducees followed their own procedure properly.

Procedure is still no guarantee there won’t be miscarriages of justice just the same.

Well anyway. On to Jesus’s trial.

Luke 22.66 KWL

Once it becomes day, the people’s elders gathered

with the head priests and scribes,

and they lead Jesus into their senate.

Within the temple structure, on the western side, the Judean συνέδριον/synédrion, “senate” (KJV “council,” CSB “Sanhedrin”) met in a stone hall arranged much like the Roman senate: Stone bleachers were arranged in a half-circle so they could all face a throne. In Rome the emperor sat on it. In Jerusalem, the head priest.

For a trial, the Pharisees dictated two scribes should write everything down, though there’s no evidence the Sadducees did any such thing. Scribes and students sat on the floor. Plaintiffs and defendants stood. The Pharisees declared the defendant oughta go first, but in all the trials in Acts, it looks like the reverse happened. Ac 4.5-12, 5.27-32, etc. Either way Jesus didn’t care to say anything, so his accusers went first. And they committed perjury. Yeah, perjury was banned in the Ten Commandments. Dt 5.20 Well, perjurers still show up in court anyway.

Preach the gospel. And use words.

There’s this really popular quote Christians use. It’s attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but we’ve no evidence he ever said it. Kinda like the St. Francis prayer, which Francis didn’t write either. People really like putting words in Francis’s mouth, don’t they?… but I digress. The saying is, “Preach the gospel [at all times]—use words if necessary.”

Which sounds profound and nice, doesn’t it? How Christians typically interpret it is, “We preach the gospel through our actions. Not just our words; not just with sermons and literature, but being kind to others, doing good deeds, loving our neighbors, and otherwise demonstrating our faith isn’t dead by doing good works.” And isn’t good works a fruit of the Spirit anyway? Shouldn’t we already be doing them?—and in so doing, we follow the Holy Spirit and Jesus?

But here’s the thing: Words are necessary.

I’ve met many a pagan who’s seen Christians do good works. Who’s seen us be kind to people, seen us create and run charities, seen us actively get out and help the needy. But when you ask ’em why these Christians are doing good deeds, their answers are always, always, “Oh they’re just trying to get to heaven.” They think we think we’re saved by good karma.

Heck, I’ve seen many a Christian who says the very same thing. “Oh those Christians are practicing ‘faith righteousness.’ You know we’re not saved by works though; we’re saved by faith.” Of course when these people say “saved by faith” what they really mean is “saved by the Christian faith,” i.e. saved by believing the right things, saved by orthodoxy. And we’re not saved by that either! We’re saved by God’s grace. Get it right, folks.

God’s grace is a huge part of the gospel: God’s kingdom has come near, so let’s repent, and trust God to save us, and he will. Grace is central to Christianity, central to forgiveness, and what God’s kingdom runs on. Yet these people watching us Christians do our good works—both pagan and Christian—have somehow not picked up on the grace thing. Even when we’re actively demonstrating grace by doing good things for people who don’t deserve it, can’t earn it, and in some cases don’t even appreciate it.

Grace went over their heads. Hey, they don’t practice it, so it stands to reason they won’t recognize it.

And this is why, when we proclaim the gospel, we have to use words! Actions are open to interpretation, and people will naturally interpret things based on themselves, based on their own prejudices and biases. They see us doing good deeds, unconsciously think, “Why might I do those good deeds?” and conclude all sorts of self-serving ulterior motives. Some of those motives are downright evil, by the way. That’s why they’ll sometimes get really suspicious of Christian charities: “Oh, you must be doing this for the same reasons I’d do it. You’re trying to get tax breaks. You’re trying to get good public relations to make up for something really bad you’ve done, or you’re secretly doing. You’re trying to look good. You’re trying to feel good about yourselves. I know what you’re really about.”

No, they really don’t. Not unless we tell them. So we gotta tell them. With words.

It’s why the bible was written in words. Why Jesus uses words to share parables, make statements, reveal God, and describe the kingdom. He didn’t leave it up to guesswork; he didn’t expect people to watch what he was doing and come to their own conclusions. You might recall some of ’em, on their own, reached the conclusion he was using Satan’s power to do his miracles. Clearly they weren’t listening to his words—and again, Jesus used words to rebuke them.

So when Jesus sends out his followers to go make him more followers, he expects us to use words. To teach them, not just with actions and good deeds, but with words, “to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” Mt 28.20 KJV —and how’d he command his students? With words.

Could’ve stopped it at any time.

Matthew 26.50-54, John 18.3-9.

When Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane on the morning of 3 April 33, the knee-jerk response of his students, same as every human, is fight or flight. Some of them fled. And some of them fought.

To some degree it was really stupid of them to fight. The senators had sent their police, along with a mob—you might call it a posse comitatus, but there was no such procedure back then for formally deputizing a mob. Basically it was, “Grab your staff and machete; we gotta go arrest a blasphemer,” and off they went. So the students were deliberately outnumbered. But there’s always gonna be a faction of true believers who think, “Numbers don’t matter; Gideon routed the Midianite and Amalekite armies with only 300 men; Jg 7 Samson personally slaughtered a thousand people with a jawbone; Jg 15.16 God can likewise supernaturally empower me to fight any number of people.”

True, God can do and empower anything he wants. But does he want to empower us to singlehandedly fight a mob? Did he say anything in advance about this sort of thing, like he’d said to Gideon and Samson? Or have we arrogantly presumed our cause is righteous, and right makes might?—because unless God intervenes, it really doesn’t, and if God hasn’t foresaid he’s gonna intervene, he likely won’t.

And had God foresaid he’d intervene in Jesus’s arrest? Or had Jesus said just the opposite, multiple times, and the students were in denial? Like this time:

Mark 10.32-34 KWL

32 Jesus and his students are on the road to Jerusalem,

and Jesus is going before them.

They’re amazed,

and the followers are afraid.

Taking the Twelve aside again,

Jesus begins to tell them what’s about to happen to him,

33 namely this: “Look, we’re going up to Jerusalem.

The Son of Man will be handed over

to the head priests and the scribes.

They’ll sentence him to death.

They’ll hand him over to the gentiles.

34 The gentiles will mock the Son of Man,

and they’ll spit on him,

and they’ll flog him,

and they’ll kill him.

And after three days, he’ll rise up.”

God hadn’t told anyone, “Fight the mob, and you’ll win”; Jesus told them he’s getting arrested. There’d be no supernatural defeat of any mob; neither by Jesus’s followers fighting back the mob, nor of angels pouring from the black sky to smite every sinner on the ground. Jesus wasn’t gonna fight back and win; Jesus was gonna surrender. On purpose. And in so doing, win and win big; but Christians still don’t understand that strategy, and still keep adopting the tactic to fight back hard.

Although the whole angels-pouring-from-the-sky idea? It actually was an option. In Matthew, Jesus says so in the middle of his arrest.

Judas Iscariot sells Jesus out to the authorities.

Mark 14.41-46, Matthew 26.45-50,
Luke 22.45-48, John 18.1-3.

In St. John Paul’s list of stations of the cross, the second station combines Judas Iscariot’s betrayal and Jesus of Nazareth’s arrest. ’Cause they happened simultaneously—they, and Simon Peter slashing one of the head priest’s slaves. There’s a lot to unpack there, which is why I want to look at them separately. Getting betrayed and getting arrested, fr’instance: That’s two different kinds of suffering. Psychological and physical.

So right after Jesus prayed in Gethsemane (the first station), this happened:

Mark 14.41-46 KWL

41 Jesus comes back a third time and tells his students,

“Sleep and rest now; it’s fine. The hour comes.

Look, the Son of Man is handed over to sinful hands.

42 Get up so we can go: Here comes the one who sold me out.”

43 Next, while Jesus is still speaking,

Judas Iscariot approaches the Twelve.

With him, a crowd with machetes and sticks,

coming from the head priests, scribes, and elders.

44 The one who handed over Jesus had given the crowd a signal,

saying, “Whomever I might show affection to, is him.

Grab him and take him away carefully.”

45 Next, coming to Jesus, he tells him, “Rabbi!”

and kisses him hello.

46 So the crowd lays their hands on Jesus

and arrests him.

 

Matthew 26.45-50 KWL

45 Then Jesus comes back to the students and told them,

“Sleep and rest—look, the hour has come near.

The Son of Man is handed over to sinful hands.

46 Get up so we can go: Here comes the one who sold me out.”

47 While Jesus is still speaking, look:

Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, comes.

With him is a great crowd with machetes and sticks,

coming from the head priests, elders, and people.

48 The one who handed over Jesus gives them a sign,

saying, “Whomever I might show affection to, is him. Grab him.”

49 Immediately coming to Jesus, he says, “Hello, rabbi!”

and kisses him hello.

50 Jesus tells Judas, “Brother, why have you come?”

Then the approaching mob throws their hands on Jesus

and seizes him.

 

Luke 22.45-48 KWL

45 Rising from the prayer, Jesus goes to the students

and finds them sleeping from the grief.

46 Jesus tells them, “Why are you asleep?

Get up and pray, or else you might enter temptation!”

47 While Jesus is still speaking, look:

A crowd, and the one called Judas, one of the Twelve, leading them.

He goes to Jesus to kiss him hello,

48 and Jesus tells him, “Judas, to kiss the Son of Man, you turn him in.”

 

John 18.1-3 KWL

1 When he said this, Jesus with his students go over the Kidron ravine,

where there’s a garden. He and his students enter it.

2 Judas Iscariot, who was selling him out, had known of the place,

because Jesus often gathers with his students there.

3 So Judas, bringing 200 men,

plus servants of the head priests and Pharisees,

comes there with torches, lamps… and arms.

Nope, Jesus didn’t sweat blood.

Luke 22.39-46 KWL

39 Coming out, Jesus goes to Olivet Hill as usual.

The students also follow him.

40 Once they’re in the place, Jesus tells them,

“Pray not to enter into temptation!”

41 Jesus withdraws from them about a stone’s throw away,

and taking to his knees, he’s praying,

42 saying, “Father, if you want, take this cup away from me!

Only not my will but yours be done.”

43 [A heavenly angel appears to Jesus, strengthening him.

44 Being in agony, Jesus is praying more fervently.

His sweat becomes like drops of blood,

falling down to the ground.]

45 Rising up from the prayer, coming to the students,

Jesus finds them sleeping from the grief.

46 Jesus tells them, “Why do you sleep?

Get up and pray, so you might not enter into temptation!”

Before his arrest, Jesus went to Gethsemane and spent some time in intense prayer. ’Cause he didn’t wanna get beaten and tortured to death. Who would?

In Mark, Jesus only has three of his students come along with him to pray, and has to go back and awaken them thrice. In Luke it appears to be all of them, and he only comes back to chide them once. Yeah they’re tired; they just had a big Passover meal and a lot of wine, plus a walk uphill, plus it’s late. But Jesus warned them his time was coming, and they needed to pray—not for him, but themselves. They’d be tempted to do a lot of dumb stuff as a result. (In fact that’s exactly what we see them do. Shoulda prayed.)

Certain preachers love to quote the Luke version of the story, because they love to point out how Jesus was so incredibly stressed out by his soon-coming passion, he was sweating blood. You saw that in verse 44. Here it is again in the KJV:

Luke 22.44 KJV

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Turns out this is an actual medical condition. It’s called hematidrosis (from the Greek for “bloody sweat”) or hematohidrosis (“bloody water”). It’s rare, but possible. Blood vessels under your skin break from stress, and blood comes out your pores. It looks creepy. But not a lot of blood comes out of you this way, so it’s largely harmless. Might cause a little dehydration, so drink some Gatorade; you’ll be fine.

Preachers find this fascinating. And they love to point out how Luke, the traditional author of this gospel, was a physician! Cl 4.14 So he’d know all about such medical conditions, right? Including this one.

Though more than once, I’ve heard a preacher claim hematidrosis actually isn’t a harmless condition: They insist it’s life-threatening. That’s why Jesus needed an angel to strengthen him in verse 43: He was on the verge of bleeding out. After all the verse says great drops of blood. Jesus was already dying, and he hadn’t even been arrested yet! You don’t want him dying before the Romans killed him; for some reason that might bungle the atonement. I’m not sure how, but they’re pretty sure it woulda.

Okay. As you can tell from the title of this article, they’re wrong. Not just about how dangerous hematidrosis is or isn’t. They’re wrong about Jesus sweating blood in the first place. The verse doesn’t say that.

The Pharisees: Those in the first century who 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥 God.

PHARISEE 'fɛr.ə.si noun. Adherent of a first-century denomination of the Hebrew religion, which emphasized the widespread teaching of the Law, and evolved into today’s Judaism.

2. A hypocrite. [Thanks to Jesus’s regular condemnation of hypocrites among the Pharisees.]

[Pharisaic fɛr.ə'seɪ.ɪk adjective, Pharisaism fɛr.ə'seɪ.ɪz.əm noun.]

People nowadays don’t really know much about the Pharisees—other than they opposed Jesus an awful lot, and he called ’em hypocrites right back. Mt 23.13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29 So there’s a lot of false information floating around about ’em. Stuff like this:

• “BUT THEY WERE HYPOCRITES.” Yeah, some definitely were. Otherwise Jesus wouldn’t’ve had to denounce their hypocrisy. But be fair: A lot of us Christians are hypocrites. A lot of us humans are hypocrites. Hypocrisy is universal. Singling out the Pharisees just means we’re gonna ignore our own tendencies towards phony behavior.
• “THEY WERE LEGALIST.” Pharisees were all about teaching the Law, so as a result Christians assume they were all about rules. All about precisely, exactly, nitpickingly following God’s commands to every last detail. Pure legalism. And works righteousness Supposedly Pharisees believed God saved them because they perfectly followed the Law. Thing is, if that were true, John the Baptist wouldn’t have to shout at them to stop sinning, and stop taking their salvation for granted just because they were Abraham’s descendants. Mt 3.7-10 Because—same as us Christians—some were legalists… and some were libertines, who figured God forgives all, so do as you please.
• “IT’S A POLITICAL PARTY, NOT A DENOMINATION.” Which they claim ’cause Flavius Josephus called ’em a political party—and he was Pharisee, so he oughta know. And it’s easy to see why: There was no separation of temple and state back then. When that’s the case, denominations are political parties. That’s what they turn into, ’cause they pursue power exactly the same way parties do, whether it’s Calvinists and Anabaptists in medieval Geneva, Puritans and Traditionalists in early modern England, Catholics and Protestants in northern Ireland, or Pharisees and Sadducees in ancient Israel. They were both.
• “THEY UNIVERSALLY HATED JESUS.” They did not. We all know exceptions from the bible, like Nicodemus. We also forget: Every synagogue Jesus taught in was a Pharisee synagogue. His title rabbí, meaning “[school]master,” was a Pharisee title. His apostle Paul, who wrote a big chunk of the New Testament, continued to call himself Pharisee long after he became Christian. Ac 23.6 The Pharisees whom Jesus tangled with in the gospels certainly didn’t care for him—but we certainly can’t say all.

Okey, let’s get to facts about Pharisees.

Those who don’t use bible as a source of revelation.

So I wrote about how the bible’s a source of revelation, and how it can be a useful tool as we Christians develop good theology. Problem is, not everybody who calls themselves Christian does this. Whether unintentionally or deliberately, way too many of us don’t bother with bible at all.

Whenever I bring up this fact with certain Evangelicals, thanks to certain prejudices they have, they immediately think of mainline churches. The assumption they typically have, is old-timey churches don’t bother with bible; their theology is based on feel-good junk. This assumption’s not based on anything valid, ’cause I’ve visited and studied the history of mainline churches, and know a few of their pastors. Their churches’ official doctrines are based on longtime traditions… and these traditions are regularly based on bible.

Don’t believe me? Look at their catechisms. A catechism is a list of a church’s official doctrines, frequently presented in the form of a list of frequently asked questions, ’cause it’s easier to memorize that way. They regularly encourage children and newbies to memorize ’em so they know exactly what Christianity—more accurately, their church—teaches.

17. “What is the chief end [by which they mean purpose] of man?”
1. “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him for ever.”

Now, does that question-and-answer pair come from bible? Kinda.

1 Corinthians 10.31 KJV

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

 

Psalm 145.1-2 KJV

1 I will extol thee, my God, O king;

and I will bless thy name for ever and ever.

2 Every day will I bless thee;

and I will praise thy name for ever and ever.

That question and answer is based on bible. Most of the catechisms connect right back to bible. Or at least they claim to; every once in a while you’ll find a Q&A where you’ll balk: “Wait, is that what the bible meant?” and no, not really. Catechisms are the work of humans y’know, and humans make mistakes.

Hence every so often there’s gonna be an official teaching of that church where y’might wonder, “How’d they come up with that?”—and nope, it’s not from bible. The church’s founder, or one of its more famous preachers, or some significant author, coined it. The people of that church thought it sounded like godly wisdom—and hey, maybe it is! But maybe it’s not. And either way, since it’s not bible, it’d better be consistent with bible. At the very least it’d better not contradict it!

So that’s what you’ll find in mainline churches: People who are trying to be consistent with the scriptures. But also consistent with their traditions. Traditions are very important to them!—they help connect ’em with one another, and with the Christians of the past. Likewise they figure those traditions are ultimately, originally based on the apostles’ teachings, i.e. bible: We shouldn’t find any contradictions between them.

Yeah, those people with hangups about how biblical mainliners are, don’t really know any mainliners.

Me, I’m not necessarily even thinking of mainliners and catechisms. I’m thinking of heretics. ’Cause I know a few.