For many years, I held piety as my god.
My grandparents grew up in a world where it was wrong to play cards. Also, “Don’t smoke, don’t chew, don’t go with girls that do.” They did drink coffee, however. Late in life, after my grandpa’s heart attack, he was told he couldn’t have coffee anymore, so he sadly had to find a new doctor who would let him drink it.
Playing cards, however, meant poker, and poker meant gambling, and gambling was reckless, so anything associated with it was out. That’s why the game “Rook” was invented—so the pietists could play cards without playing cards. Rook specifically removed the elements offensive to pietists that defined what “cardplaying” was: hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs, and face cards. They specifically made a game that could theoretically be played with a regular deck, but adjusted it to be a not-a-card-deck. It was marketed to Protestants who wanted a compact card-like-game, but didn’t want to violate their consciences or church rules. Other pietist games popped up over the years—for instance, the Mennonites created “Dutch Blitz.”
One of my sons is a gifted magician now, buying decks of cards in big bricks, and can move a card from the bottom of the deck to the top by just tapping it or waving his hand. We hardly see him without a deck of cards on him, as he’s ready to delight whoever he’s around. We joke in my family, wondering what Grandpa would have thought about that. I actually think he would have laughed. Grandpa softened as he got older. It seemed a lot of folks in his generation did. I remember him playing “war” with me when I was a kid with a deck of cards, and he smiled and laughed to himself.
To say he softened doesn’t mean he let his principles go, or that he loved Jesus less. On the contrary. Some may interpret “softening” as compromising, or giving into the culture. Some say as you age, you just get too tired to stay so strict. But I interpret it as grace rising up as their bodies weakened, and clarity sharpening as heaven got clearer.
Piety itself is intentional living in a way that honors God. It’s believing his words, and considering how they transform us. However, when piety gets it’s “-ism”, practicing godliness becomes institutionalized and love of neighbor becomes generalized across generations. This depersonalizes our vocation, and in doing so, creates rules that the Bible never gave, in the name of “being on the safe side.” This often leads to finding safety in our obedience and safety in our legacy, rather than safety in the steadiness of God’s grace.
I often think of this when reading through 1 Corinthians, as Paul discusses the legality of meat being sacrificed to idols. Paul didn’t see this meat in and of itself as bad, as idols are false and hold no power. But eating it in front of people who held deep wounds from the worship of those idols—that was bad because it wasn’t being sensitive to the fragility and pain of your neighbor.
My grandpa considered card playing bad because, at the time, he heard stories and knew of people who were addicted to gambling and this addiction was destroying their lives. Husbands and fathers could lose everything in one hand, and their wives and children were helpless to stop it. For him, not playing cards was like the previous generation of abolitionists not eating sugar in protest of the sugar industry heavily relying on slave labor.
To consider how we honor God with our lives, we must remember that we don’t make ourselves holy by our works. We are made holy by the blood of Christ. We honor God by doing the works he’s given us to do, which is to love our neighbor in his name. And not just neighbor in a general sense, but our specific neighbors, with our specific gifts. We have a highly personal God who sees us, knows us, and first knit us together. Therefore, we have to look at the needs and struggles of our neighbors, not our grandparent’s neighbors, and use our gifts to serve them.
For many years, I held piety as my god. In the energy of young adulthood, I was probably at “peak piety,” in terms of the institutional sense. I was “on fire for God” and was constantly trying to one up and optimize my spirituality. Instead of understanding the Christian life of mountains and valleys, I would try to hop from K2 to Everest. Looking back, I struggled deeply with judging others in their weakness. I knew what was right, and the right way to do it, and how to do it, and why don’t others just do it, because it’s right, and they’re lives will be right? I look back at some of the things I said in that phase, and shudder at my arrogance, veiled as piety.
Even now, sometimes when I’m talking with my pastor about what is “the right thing to do” in various situations, it feels like a tightrope walk for me. I want to avoid even the appearance of doing the wrong thing, and probably care more about what people think of me than actually loving my neighbor. He calls out my pride, and turns me back to grace. The line is ever so subtle between loving your neighbors and wanting your neighbors to like you and think well of you.
I want to be liked. I want to be accepted. I want to be loved. But the solution to that is to look to the power of the cross, not to get stuck in obsessing over “what will people think?”
In 1 Thessalonians 5:22, the King James translation says “abstain from all appearance of evil.” But ESV, NIV, and NASB translate it to “every form/kind of evil.” Whether the discrepancy is a mistranslation, or the language itself has changed and we must interpret it differently, that passage isn’t about “what looks bad” but “what is bad.” For me, that has been a process of learning to call my self-righteousness “evil” and crucifying that too.Worrying about “what looks bad” fed both my self-righteousness and insecurity, depending on the day. Calling a thing what it actually was, evil or good, brought clarity. Learning to be generous with my neighbor, and loving them well wherever they were spiritually actually simplified things.
I often wrestle with my motives. They can point to wounds, pains, and sins. I want to be liked. I want to be accepted. I want to be loved. But the solution to that is to look to the power of the cross, not to get stuck in obsessing over “what will people think?” Through pastoral care and multiple mentors, I’ve been pointed back to my assurance in Christ, the lavishness of rest given in my baptism, and wisdom and freedom together given by the Holy Spirit in learning how to love my neighbor best.
“Just tell us what to do” the pietist asks, of extra-biblical questions like card playing. Let’s just have some standard rules so we don’t even have to think about it. Create a culture around our pious rules, then defend it like the gospel. This way of life gives the illusion of simplicity. Year by year I’ve learned to reject that stance, as I do want to think about it. I do want to pray about it. Whenever there’s a question of whether or not a Christian “ought to” do something, I want to embrace that as an opportunity for prayer, and meditation. I rejoice in another opportunity to wrestle through something with my Lord. Those times of vulnerability before God have become too precious to me to give up. I reject the pious rules, and embrace childlike curiosity at the feet of Jesus. Through the proclamation of the gospel, I’m reminded of my freedom again and again, to the point that I’m starting to believe it.
I’m giving up my pietism, in the sense of worrying about the appearance of evil, and extra rules that help us avoid the appearance of evil, and finding peace through my Christians freedom. Freedom that means I can ask God and use my God-given reason to figure out how to handle individual situations. Freedom that trusts his Holy Spirit will be faithful each time and his lavish grace covers it all.
