The other day, the Blogger of Jared, instigated my thinking about beer.

And today’s front page headlines of our local paper, the Post Register, had everybody in the community thinking about bars.

In his article, “The last drop:  Miller’s Hideaway closes, leaving Rexburg without a single bar,” Matthew Evans writes,

There’s a bar on every corner in many a college town.  Not so in Rexburg, home to Brigham Young University-Idaho.  The city lost its only watering hole recently when Miller’s Hideaway shut down.  Although the place had its regulars, business had tapered to the point where, after 11 years, it was impossible to stay afloat, said Sherrie Miller, who owned the bar with her husband, Jim.  It’s hard to believe a fast-growing college town like Rexburg can’t support a bar, she said. 

“You’d think my business would be gangbusters,” Sherrie Miller said.

But Rexburg’s not really known for its nightlife, said Donna Benfield, executive director of the Rexburg Chamber of Commerce.  Most of the 12,000 or so students at BYU-Idaho are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which forbids alcohol consumption. . . .

No bar in the whole town!  What other place in America is like this?  This would be like a dream come true for most conservative Baptists in their cities.

But here are some questions.  Is worldliness not only drunkenness but also obeying any rule to be attached to the righteousness obtained only through the work of Christ on the cross for needed justification and sanctification?  Really, which is the greater heart issue?

A friend’s email today carries some thought provoking statements on Colossians 2:

. . . In chapter 2, Paul expresses that he does not want his readers to be deceived by fine-sounding arguments.  Instead, he wants believers to continue to live in Christ in the same way they received him.  This sentence is easily bypassed without much thought.  Paul expresses an identical sentiment in the first several verses of Galatians 3.  He is arguing that having begun by faith, the work of sanctification must continue by faith.  His readers were in danger of reverting to the old ways of living under both Law and the traditions and commandments of men. . . .

References like verse 8, apart from the larger context, are quickly and easily marshaled into service by ultra-conservative fundamentalists.  As such they are exemplary of how the Scriptures are used sometimes to make points that directly contradict their own teaching.  In fact, I believe these ultraconservative fundamentalists are themselves masters of “fine-sounding arguments” and have captivated hundreds of thousands of people to the legalism condemned in this passage.  The same is true of anyone, fundamentalist or not, who attempts to be sanctified by works of the Law.

Now I do not wish to imply that evangelicals do not struggle with worldliness but rather that worldliness is more than what many of us think it to be.  Paul goes on to talk about how the death of Christ freed us from the written code, with its regulations–the Law.  And beyond this, he also disarmed, triumphed over, and made a public spectacle of earthly authorities (v. 15).  If Christ has freed us from the condemning power of the very Law of God, how much more has he freed us from the condemning power of the rules, traditions, regulations, and imaginations of men.  These rule-makers and their rules define the “worldliness” of this passage.  Their idle notions, usually claimed to have been derived supernaturally (v. 18; Gal. 1:8-9), unfortunately lead to a false sense of righteousness (v. 18).  Instead, they reveal a profound and serious disconnect from Christ and the means by which he intends his Church to grow and be strengthened (v. 19).

On the heels of all this, Paul states words that are hard to misunderstand:

(v. 20) Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: (v. 21) “Do not handle!  Do not taste!  Do not touch!”  (v. 22)  These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.  (v. 23)  Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

My friend was sharing this in connection with issues related to Christian evangelicalism and fundamentalism. 

But today, I am thinking of the moral rules in LDS Zion (btw, I don’t drink but for vastly different reasons then my LDS friends).  In connection to righteousness based on grace for our justification and sanctification, I wonder if LDS friends ever get accused with the question of Romans 6:1 in their Sunday School sessions of Scripture instruction and discussion.  I think only those who properly teach the doctrines of grace receive such interjections as Romans 6:1.  Don’t you?