Phillips Theological Seminary embraces "E Pluribus Unum"

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Getting in on the world's great universal moralistic aspiration: Oneness as its own end, Oneness without God.

"It is for freedom that Christ sets It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Gal 5:1

I am more and more impressed as time goes on how Christ frees us not only from the sins of culture but also from its righteousnesses. At this point I am beginning to suspect that the righteousnesses of culture may well represent greater and more cruel forms of bondage, of servitude, of slavery than the sins of culture.

When a person comes to Christ in faith and repudiates any reliance on his or her own righteousness, they must realize that one of the reasons this is essential is that the righteousness they are repudiating has been terminally compromised by the luxuriant moralistic fantasies that they have breathed in and embraced simply because of where and when they were raised. The litmus tests they have had to pass in order to have credibility in the circles in which they want to be taken seriously. All the dotted Is and cross Ts they have had to cross to signal their virtue while at the same time selling their souls--"what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Mark 8:36). In short ALL our righteousnesses, All our "filthy rags" as the Bible calls them, are and have been inextricably entangled with the slave debt we owe to the false and hysterically promoted moralistic fantasies that our culture has embraced and imposed on us as the only appropriate means of self-righteous self-justification.

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:29)

When we come to Christ, therefore, we must not try to impress Him with all our filthy rags, our proudly worn yoke of false moralistic fantasies, all those things we feel sure we've gotten right. We must simply turned our backs on all that, walk away. We must come to him with no righteousness of our own at all. We must come with empty hands ready to learn His righteousness because it is only empty hands that can be filled and by being filled be made truly free.

"It is for freedom that Christ set us free...do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery!"

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