Many people make the mistake of equating fundamentalism with legalism. In fact, Christian legalists can come from any part of the spectrum from conservative to liberal. People who are not Christians, whether they practice another religion or no religion at all, can be legalists. The differences between them come from what restrictive belief system they follow.

That is usually the point of confusion between Christian legalism and Christian fundamentalism. The fundamentalist studies the key points of his belief system and applies them. However, there is an important difference between how a legalist applies them and how a Christian fundamentalist applies them, and that lies in the motivation behind their practice.

A legalist often practices his beliefs with a threat of divine or human punishment hanging over him if he fails to perform adequately. He is always having to measure up to high standards, struggling to live with an unforgiving judge critically assessing his performance and usually finding him wanting somehow. What little love there is in this is conditional upon his performance, and may be taken away and wrath imposed on him instead at the whim of the arbitrary judge. No wonder so many people hate legalism so thoroughly.

A Christian fundamentalist lives by the law of loving God and loving his neighbor as himself. The rule of thumb to check his attitudes and actions against this standard is the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Instead of living under the threat of punishment, he lives by considering how his actions will affect the other beings around him and refrains from anything that would cause harm to them. He is loved unconditionally by God even if he should sin, and his fellow Christians are supposed to show this same love towards him and he in turn is supposed to love them unconditionally in return.

Am I instead preaching liberal Christianity by this? No, I'm preaching fundamental Christianity. Every Christian is supposed to live by this rule. It is a matter of differing motivations, love versus fear. For example, both the legalist and the fundamentalist can agree that "Thou shalt not steal" is a good and just law. However, the legalist will enforce it with threats of punishment from God and man, and will devise intricate legal codes to cover every little possibility of violating the law.

That's what happened in Judaism, where God gave them this law and then they built up more laws based on this until they were groaning under a heavy burden of laws that they couldn't keep. The legalist's viewpoint is centered around himself and what is good or bad for himself. He lives in a restrictive box of laws beyond whose boundary punishment will befall him. He chafes under their external control, yet fears to test their limits.

Part of the reason that God gave them these laws was to show them how awful it is to live under such a system. It is much better to obey the law of love and not cause harm than to disobey it and have to deal with the consequences. True Christianity stresses character development to shape a person's character to be like Christ's character. Then his judgments will be made according to what shows love towards God and his fellow beings.

A Christian is not supposed to steal because it would upset God and his fellow beings because the theft would harm someone. It would cause emotional, physical, and financial harm which is not loving towards the person that was robbed, and not loving towards God Who made that person and loves him so that God does not want other beings harming him. It certainly isn't something that he would want done to him. When he considers his possible actions, his viewpoint is looking outward at his world and both the possible harm to himself and to others when making his choice of a course of action. He exercises self-control voluntarily because he agrees with the wisdom of the law.

This still smacks of legalism to many. It seems that the Christian would be forever referring to the law and weighing his options against its demands. Actually, once the Christian has learned the law through teaching and practice, he simply follows it from quickly comparing the current situation to past situations where he has successfully applied the law of love. That is why it takes time for a Christian to "grow up" in the Faith, just as a child needs years to learn the rules of his earthly country's culture and law. By consistent teaching of the rules and opportunities to practice them in actual life situations, the child learns how to handle new situations by what worked well in the past.

The key to how a person handles each new situation is the belief system by which he weighs his options. That is why it is crucial to educate people in a socially positive belief system if you want to have a peaceful, loving, law-abiding society. Christianity is founded on just such a belief system because God wants His created beings to live in love and peace with Him and each other.

He gave us instructions in the Bible and through older disciples in the Faith to teach and guide new Christians into desirable attitudes and patterns of behavior, thus causing them to acquire the character of Christ. They still retain their own individual personalities, but they interact with God and each other through love and not through fear or aggression.

If you are not familiar with the Christian faith, I would urge you to read the New Testament first, starting with the book of John, to meet Jesus Christ and see what this law of love is about. It is not meant to bind people in rigid, unreasonable restrictions on their behavior. It is meant to set people free to live godly, prosperous lives in love and peace with their God and their fellow beings.