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Pooh Bear

I have a Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal that sits on a shelf in my office. I think it was a gift from one of my sons. I pinned a button on Pooh that says, "Question Dogmatism." A student recently asked me about the button and why it was on Pooh Bear. Maybe, I originally thought, it was an accident. But after further mulling, I think I may have done it on purpose.

My whole Christian life I have struggled between the desire for a set of rules under which to live my life and the stifling feeling of what the Church tells me is "right" or "wrong." The more I talk with this generation of college students, the more I hear choruses of the same refrain. In one sentence they vent, "But I just want to live my life the way I want — there are just so many rules and regs!" In the next sentence they bemoan the fact that there are no clear-cut moral guidelines anywhere in our culture to help them out.

So for them and for me and for you, which is it? What will it take for us to have minds that question and analyze the beliefs around us and within us, yet also acknowledge the God of the universe and His dictates for our life?

Pooh Bear has the button on for a reason. What a better character is there to skirt the issue of dogmatic thinking than Pooh? He is one of the most laid back, simple-minded, lovable characters in the world.

When Pooh and Piglet walk along, hold hands and remind each other that it is just nice to know there is someone there, doesn't that speak to the place we want to be? It is a place that is simple and free of tough decisions, life circumstances, and hurts. It is a place where the hard and fast rules of life don't really seem to matter. However, it is also a place that nobody really gets to hang out in for very long.

Perhaps you make a spring break getaway or go on a family vacation or even take a weekend road trip to go to a concert with friends — all places where the reality of the world seems so distant. We will even hear ourselves say, "Well, tomorrow it's back to the real world!"

But the Hundred Acre Wood isn't real. The reality we face is making decisions that balance both rules and grace. That is the world we live in. As much as we may want to live in Pooh's world or even take on his personality, we aren't wired that way and I don't think God intended us to be.

God created us to battle through this conflict of interest in our lives. We must not only learn to exercise the freedom God grants us but also know that His Truth is expressed in ways that look like limits and rules and moral answers of "yes" and "no."

So where did this conflict come from?

We could go back to the Garden of Eden and say it started there, and yes, that would be true … but it is easy for us to sluff that off as the answer for all the questions of our faith. I want to know where it started for me and for you.

The Pooh Bear and button combo has been around my office for years, as have my issues with authority and the abuse that that authority can sometimes wield. There were many years when I associated the Church with an abusive authority. By default that means that my view of Christians was also tainted that way. For me (and perhaps for you) the issues came down to my own desire to control my life and my willingness to let God be God.

Recently I read a study that concluded that young people (and you guys were in the age group described) were less inclined to go to church because of a view that legalism was the primary motivation for church member activity. I read and reread the statement and was a bit confused by one word. What did the study or the respondents mean by "legalism"?

I'm pretty sure they had the same basic idea in mind, but I also fear that most might think that legalism is anything that flies in the face of what they want to do. My seven-year-old son thinks that way. He has a difficult time figuring out that Dad's big, bad rules about running into the street have something to do with his personal well-being and not being flattened by a passing car. He might think of his "old man" as a stick-in-the-mud legalist. I'm pretty sure I thought curfews or any other parent-infused rule was legalistic simply because it wasn't what I wanted to do.

Legalism can indeed be a harsh and unfortunate reality when dogmatic thinking is partnered with a lack of moral reasoning. As a parent, a professor, an administrator, and even as a child of God, I've got to search out and base my decisions on the moral foundations of truth claims, not whimsy. God is great about giving us the moral reason why about every precept in His Word

Now, the honest answer is, we may not like it, but it's there — just like when I stand and explain to my son that there are reasons why Dad says not to run into the street. We may kick and scream against it, but Pooh's button doesn't give us the freedom to walk across the wood, kick in Owl's door, push over Eeyore's house of sticks, pop Piglet's balloon and step on Tigger's tale all in the name of not wanting to follow some silly edicts given to us by some higher authority about what is right and wrong.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Do you think our generation is being pushed away from the church by legalism? If so, is it really legalism, or is it just us not wanting to submit to God's precepts?

Join the discussion!

Each of us should begin to question dogmatism. It's dangerous thinking. But don't mistake moral boundaries for something you inappropriately call legalism and thus turn your back on the greatest law giver in the history of world: God. You will also be buying into one of the greatest lies of this culture. Is it really legalism you're venting about or something much deeper?