A Religion of Rules?

Something about hard-edged and inflexible rules invites rebellion. We persistently search for loopholes, and routinely plead mitigating circumstances when we have disobeyed the law. When loopholes are locked shut and nothing is allowed to mitigate the harshness of punishment, we either submit or rebel. Human frailty feels the need for a little flexibility on occasion. Most of us believe that there are times when the law should be bent a little, if not broken. Most societies understand the dangers of rigid rules that demand obedience or else. Rules are essential; they must be followed; a society cannot exist without certain disciplines, but clear-thinking societies know that sometimes the law should be administered with a degree of moderation.

A religion of rules without emphasis on relationship breed rebellion against the rules and thus, against the religion that seeks to bind its adherents to the letter of the law, or else, it breeds those who believe in the literal letter of the law, ignoring its spirit and purpose. The apostle Paul tells us that the law was intended as a tutor helping us to understand major features of how love goes about its business. Rules, Paul says, are not an end in themselves. They serve a purpose: to lead us beyond the law to the freedom of following the spirit of the rules, to accomplish that which commandments by themselves cannot ever achieve.

But on the other hand, a religion of relationship, a religion of love without rules reduces religion to fickle feelings. We cannot love by a rule book, but love without boundaries risks a disconnect from the very meaning of love. Relationship requires rules, yet we cannot establish and maintain good relationships if we live purely by a set of rules.

Rules sometimes are intended to be rigidly adhered to and strictly enforced. On the other hand are rules of thumb, rules that tell us what, in general, what most of the time, we should do. Law guides behavior and educates us in the ways that work most effectively.