Are You A Pharisee? No? Are You SURE? J
Have you ever wondered what the modern equivalent of a Pharisee wearing a phylactery is? (For those who don’t know, a phylactery was a little box that ancient Jews would secure to their forehead with a strap, and inside the box was the Shema or other important scriptures. It was a public demonstration of piety) Jesus spoke out against the Pharisees because they would “broaden their phylacteries” in order to outdo their fellow Jews in their outward religiosity and public piety. When I became a Christian I spotted the modern-day equivalent of the phylactery with the ease of gliding on wet ice: The Bible-toters Bible. I’d see them all over the place, especially on Sunday. The Pharisees would be toting some ten pound Bible around, and I knew damn well it was a Bible because the words on the cover said HOLY BIBLE in print so large it could be seen from space! They were broadcasting to the world, “I’M A CHRISTIAN! I HAVE JESUS IN MY HIP POCKET! I’M SO SPIRITUAL!”Other modern day phylacteries are clerical collars, priestly garb, and nuns habits. Even the modern American business suit has become The Religious Garb of the Sunday-go-to-meeting crowd. One is looked down upon in many snooty churches unless one is wearing The Proper Religious Garb. T-shirts with religious slogans and pictures are in this category too. Anything external that says “Hey! Lookie what a great Christian--or Buddhist or whatever--I am!”
I would sometimes try to point this out to friends who were engaging in this Pharisaic behavior and was usually rewarded with blank bovine stares or anger.
I was only able to get a handful of people to start thinking of Pharisees in modern day terms, to ask themselves “What would a modern day Pharisee do if he were a Christian?” and then to search their own lives, behaviors, and attitudes and eliminate the Pharisaic elements. Modern day Pharisees behave in a variety of ways, but they remain at core religious people NOT spiritual people.
Many of my born again friends once saw so clearly what it meant to be a Pharisee, and guarded against it in themselves. I’ve watched as they’ve learned to talk out of both sides of their mouths over the years, just like a Pharisee. Bible worship and faith in the Bible has taken the place of God in their hearts. The Bible has become their Idol, their substitute for God. Once upon a time these former spiritually alive people made the living God, as they understood God, the center of their lives. The Bible was only important if it helped them experience God. If not, the scripture was ignored. Now the Bible is the Golden Calf and they dance the Dance of JuJu around it, making Bible study and end in itself. As though merely learning the Bible is going to make them spiritually alive and mature. Yet Jesus said to the Pharisees, in the Gospel of John, “Ye search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life. Yet it is they which testify of Me.” They don’t see it. Why? Because they’ve become blind Pharisees.
Dead doctrines have taken the place of a life in the Spirit. Instead of focusing on the transforming inner Spirit, they ride doctrinal hobby horses, or moral issue hobby horses. Many make an idol out of Eternal Security--presumably so they can live like hell and still be assured of Heaven. Or perhaps speaking in tongues, or whether or not one says *uck. Sh** like that, you know? Things that have absolutely no ultimate meaning or significance whatsoever they project onto God! As if God shares their petty inane superficial concerns! Others have replaced the Spirit with the abortion issue. It’s their center. Or gay bashing. Gay bashing and abortion are big with the Phari-fundiots I know that used to be free and easy spiritual folks, who once were alive in the Spirit.
Heck, it’s even rather Pharisaic of me to write an article exposing modern day Pharisees, but I can’t communicate it simply by quoting the bible or putting on a shadow play.
Rather than get their hands dirty riding around giving out sandwiches and sodas to the homeless, these folks prefer to simply give money to their church or charity and shut off their brains, “having faith” that the money will go to help the needy. Problem is, only a few cents out of every dollar actually go to helping the poor. Most money given to a church for charitable purposes actually goes to pay off the mortgage, the utility bills, the upkeep, the pastor, plus money has to be sent to headquarters if it’s a denominational church. If it’s a nondenominational church, then there is absolutely no headship over the pastor, he is answerable and accountable to no one, and you can bet your sweet aunt Petunias booty that a LOT of the money gets laundered in some clever ways and winds up in the pastors pocket. I know this for a fact because I have seen it from the inside.
The same for charities. Be careful. Most people working for “charities” live much higher on the hog than you do! The make a very comfortable living being parasites. If you don’t see these people as parasites, you’re not seeing clearly. You aren’t able to rise above your culture and simply look at it without preconceptions such as “Oh but they’re doing a noble work!” Are they? People who volunteer their time for a legitimate charity are doing a noble work, not parasites who make a grand living from money donated for the needy!
Becoming arrogant, hateful, spiteful spewers of venom such as Pat “Where’d I leave my humanity ?” Robertson and Jerry “Kill the fags!” Falwell is also the behavior of the Pharisee. One who has been touched by Divinity knows Love and Grace, they’re filled with the Fruits of the Holy Spirit. Try finding a fundy that can even enumerate the Fruits of the Holy Spirit! You will look long and hard to find one that can. The Fruits of the Holy Spirit are “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.” I don't see self righteousness or anger or hate or rage or killing gays or bombing abortion clinics or judging people in this list. I’ve pointed these out to angry fundiots who swing their Bibles around bashing people with them and condemning them to hell, and they retort with “I’m forgiven not perfect! None of that gay-sounding crap matters!” I am, sadly, serious. This has occurred more than once or twice.
I worked with a fellow named Linwood Tuttle for several years. We all called him Linwill Tattle because he reported everything he heard and saw back to our supervisor. We had to be extremely careful around this hateful--but smiling!--Bible-toting evildoer. He quoted scripture almost incessantly, “praised the Lord!” all over the place, but then would report on any of us--for such offenses as smoking in the lounge, leaving the job site for lunch--so that our supervisor would pat him on the head and say “Good boy!” One day I was working with him and he was literally swearing like a pirate. Every other words was “*uck” and “**it.” Then I cussed when I cut myself trying to get a stubborn screw out of a desk, and he lit into me about how swearing was a sin! Another coworker and I looked at each other dumbstruck. I finally said, “Lin, you swear like a pirate.” He went ballistic and started talking in a threatening manner, so I got in his face and invited him to do something honest for a change and punch me in the face instead of stab me in the back. He became enraged and screamed “Who the *UCK do you think you ARE?” I answered, “I’m Mister Seventy Times Seven Lin.”
He began cursing up a storm, spittle flying from his mouth, and he left the room, and called our supervisor Tony Maloney (not his real name). I got into trouble for inviting Lin to punch me in the face instead of stabbing me in the back! This fellow is really not unusual. I also worked with a short, very obese, black older fellow who was a Seventh Day Adventist. His name was Ed Sentel, and we called him Ed See and Tell and Ed Sentinel. He was the same as Linwill Tattle, but he also liked judging how much God loved a person by how much money they made and what kind of car they drove.
Over the decades, experience has taught me that born-againers are the most likely to steal, to spy, to back-stab, to try and undermine others at work, to lie through their teeth to get ahead, and to coast along on the efforts of others. When people start “praising the Lord” around me, I get my back up against the wall for protection.
Their response? “I’m forgiven! Not perfect!”
Cheap grace and easy believism, hypocrisy, judging others harshly while being easy on oneself, these are all marks of the Pharisee. Of the religiously alive but spiritually dead. Majoring in minors is also a trait of the Pharisee. Focusing on what denomination one attends, how long one’s hair is, or one’s whiskers or the length of a skirt, or whether or not one smokes. All these are the concerns of the Pharisee. They don’t care about the homeless, the downtrodden, or the suffering and neglected, except in some abstract amorphous way. They think you’re great if you go off to war and kill others in pointless wars such as Iraq, but get bent out of shape if Janet Jackson flashes a breast on TV during the Superbowl!
In other words, a Pharisee is not sane. They focus on externals, major in minors, use smoke and mirrors to make themselves look good, judge others harshly, and are quite sure of their own salvation and of your damnation. They’re immoral or amoral and can’t even see it! They will rationalize their behavior till the moon turns to butter, and haughtily justify themselves any way they can.
I used to have a close born-again friend named Annie McCoy who would often ask me, “Yeah, but is he/she a REAL Christian?” when I spoke of devout Catholics or Eastern Orthodox. Finally, I snapped back, “How the hell should I know? I can’t read and judge their hearts! That’s up to GOD!” That shut her up for awhile but also drove a wedge in our friendship. She was the kind of person who considered herself a real Heavy Hitter For Jesus when in actuality she was just a very religiously odd woman with a great singing voice.
This same woman, when she was in her mid thirties, began concerning herself intently with the doings of others instead of focusing the Light on herself. “Well!” she would exclaim, “I would love to Quote The Sctipture to them and set them straight!” She would say it over and over at various verbal cues, very much like a program had been installed in her brain. I now know that program is called a meme. At one time she threw herself at me and said she wanted to have an affair with me, and I declined her advances and told her, “I love you like a sister Annie, not sexually or romantically.” That was the last straw and she has held me at arms length ever since.I bring this up because every social study I’ve read of fundies indicate this schizophrenia is normal. Swinging back and forth like a pendulum, into the flesh and then into the religion. Back and forth, back and forth. It was people such as this that added to my finally dumping mainstream Christianity.
We’ve all seen the Fundy Family at restaurants. The folks who make a big public display of their prayers. They hold hands, bow their heads, and in a voice loud enough for all to hear they preach a sermonette disguised as a prayer, making sure everyone knows how much they love Jesus. Sometimes the prayer is whispered, but the bowed heads and hand holding is very obvious. These people aren’t simply praying, they’re letting you know that you need to be more religious like them. Funny, because Jesus rebuked the Pharisees on this very issue.:
“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thouprayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee.” (Matthew 6:5-7)
Fundamentalists read the same Bible as everyone else, yet when it comes to Pharisaic behavior it makes no impression on their minds at all. They’re incapable of seeing any connection to their own behavior. I recall one season of Survivor in which a fundamentalist African American contestant made a point of forcing everyone to pray with her publicly before they ate or did anything else. I’m sure she was wrapped in a warm religious glow, patting herself on the back for the wonderful “stand she had taken for Christ.” She came across as pushy, manipulative, self-righteous, not very bright, and creepy. I think she was quickly voted off the island, which of course was the correct response. Jesus himself would have voted her off!
Wouldn’t it be great if she were actually reading this and it got through her armor plated skull? Dream on.