put it rather well when he said that he felt that
trying to be a Christian was like whistling in the dark. They all
admitted that their concept was widespread among their fellow church
members and that it had little appeal. When they were asked why such an
unappealing concept of a Christian was so prevalent, they replied that
it was due to people's feeling that they ought to be better than they
are. Their discussion revealed further that they were unable to accept
themselves as human beings, and that they felt they had to justify
themselves by doing good works and by moral living.

That is the reason why Mrs. Strait holds to the moralistic concept of
the Christian life. Separated from her husband and feared by her
children, she feels acutely vulnerable and guilty. As a defense, she has
built for herself a fortress made up of precepts, ideals, and rules, all
based on a foundation of righteousness, and this has made her a
formidable and rigid person. Like all self-righteous people, she
tirelessly dispenses obvious truths, and keeps her own life and that of
others narrowly proscribed.

Mrs. Strait is in no way an exception. The lives of moralistic people
are not beautiful to behold. They are apt to be conventional,
legalistic, and maintainers of the status quo. Because they have no
sense of deliverance themselves, they are apt to be ungracious in
relation to others. Because they live by the law, they do not show the
fruit of the Spirit: namely, the love, joy, peace, and long-suffering
which should mark the followers of Christ. They reveal how impossible it
is for a human being to be a Christian by himself. He needs the spirit
of Christ to live in him and to remake him. As we shall see later, there
is available to us the spirit of Christ, who accomplishes in us the
righteousness of Christ which is of the spirit and not of the law.

Moralism also is a sign of our fear and defensiveness. We reduce life to
the dimensions of a moral code, because we are afraid to trust the
Spirit and to risk the dangers of love and its communication. As one
person said, "Let's be proper so we won't need to pray, for there is no
knowing what God might ask us to do if we really listened to Him." In
other words, moralism is a way of "playing it safe."

_Intellectualism_

A fourth concept sometimes held by church members about the faith was
exhibited by Mr. Knowles. Its name is intellectualism. This
intellectualism, sometimes called gnostic