Some thoughts from a former church-plant launch team member: Axl Rose

Axl Rose's new album is out. So here is a throwback toast to him and Kurt Loader. However, his thoughts on religion are really insightful: 1) he demonstrates how spiritually bankrupt churches become when they are driven by man-made rules. Here are some words from Jerram Barrs on this point:

 "In reaction to...pressures from the ‘world’ Christians search for safety for ourselves, for our children, for our young people, and we are promised this safety if we turn to authority (the chain of command) and to rules for godly living - rules that have as their intention keeping us and our young people apart from the world – this replaces the central theme of the ‘story’ of God reaching out to draw the nations to himself by forgiving their sins and showing mercy with separation and purity as we define it.

2) He demonstrates how ugly a church can become when it forgets about "true religion" which responding to grace and living out of that grace in love towards other people. Again Jerrams words help:

True religion – in which we live out of and in response to grace - can be replaced by moralism – in which we do things for God and seek to prove to him, to ourselves and to each other how righteous and zealous we are in the Lord’s service...The Gospel of grace and mercy towards sinners loses out to the moral offerings and sacrifices we make to the Lord [e.g. Burning our Guns and Roses records publicly] - like Judaism was at the time of Christ - instead of living by the grace of God we seek to live by our moral effort. Paul addresses this issue with great power in Romans - we substitute the genuine Gospel for a religion of the written code - this will degenerate very rapidly into legalism because we will inevitably start adding to God's commandments.

3) He teaches us that legalism issues into pride or despair. In the case of Axl, he gave up and despaired in view of hypocracy. Others, who are good and the religion game, take it on and stay in the church because it is a source of pride and power. Again, in Jerram's words:

This brings us to one of the fatal flaws of the rules we design for righteousness and godliness. Such devotion to our rules develops pride, because human rules can indeed be kept, so this means that Lord is kept at a distance. We perform what we have required of ourselves and then take pride in our performance... But, if we become proud of anything, we lose the way no matter how good the thing is that makes us proud of ourselves. If we substitute human laws for God's laws then we can keep them and pride will naturally follow. God's law is not easy and was not designed to be so, for it reflects His own glorious holiness. But, we must not let ourselves substitute human laws for his Law, for the effect of this substitution is to keep Christ at a distance and to put our faith in our efforts and laws. One of the attractions of legalism is that we can actually do much of what we require of ourselves. Legalism enables us to feel good about ourselves and that we are doing just fine, becoming a mature Christian and growing (so we think), but it actually hides us from what is truly good and right. It creates pride - all legalism creates the mentality that ‘we see and understand and that we have what it takes’. Scripture says that whenever we think that way we deceive ourselves (James 4:6; 1 Corinthians 8:1). Self-righteousness does not draw the unbeliever.

4) Axl teaches us that legalism may burn bright at first--"we were united at first"--but it eventually tailspins into poisonous judgmentalism. 

5) Axl shows us that legalism fosters rebellion, because if you do not measure up and see the emptiness of other's prideful behavior, you lose hope. 

6) Axl demonstrates the rules-based churches repel unbelievers because the whole functionality of the church is based on performance. Many people reject Christianity for this reason--they don't want to sign up for a "do good" club. They know full well that they can't "do good" and have already had enough experience being shunned for failing to do good. 

But this is not really Christianity, for Christianity is ultimately founded on what Christ has done. The church points to a historical fact: Jesus lived the life you should have lived, and died the death you should have died. There is no space for pride and judgmentalism in this equation, because our acceptance before God and others and ourself is based on another. We are set free by grace, and then our hearts begin to choose to become more truly human, more in line with God's own character--which is brilliantly reflected in His law: "God's Law is a marvelous gift, which promises freedom, blessing and life to us as we commit ourselves to obey it out of love for Christ and in humble dependence on the Spirit. In contrast the legalism of human rules which so often plagues the people of God brings bondage, immaturity and rebellion to our homes, churches, schools and youth ministries."