"Jesus was never less than a moralist and always more than a moralist.
Jesus forgave as no moralist can and made a demand larger than any moralist would."
Jaroslav Pelikan in conversation with David Goa
I often regard moralism as a symptom of immaturity—a clinging to a set of rules of behaviour important to parents and others in teaching children within our role as guardians.
Children need to be helped, guided and encouraged as they engage with the developing movements of their hearts and minds and with the life of the world. Until they are fully formed, moral guidance helps them not accidentally misstep and do things that will harm them for the better part of their lives. We seek to guide our children’s behavior and thinking so they are not harmed in ways that will play back in their soul’s formation and damage their capacity for life-giving relationships in a fragile world.
The problem comes when, based in our own passions, we become fearful of our own moral missteps—of how they became appetites leading to our own struggles. This fear leads to moralism that elevates moral injunctions into the register of the spiritual life and our understanding of the experience of faith. We confuse faith, belief, and behaviour and thus, are compelled by fear to lay down the law. Then we can’t hear the movements of the heart of the young and we impede the development of faith and the virtues of courage and temperance that form good judgement. We create confusion as behaviour gets abstracted into moral ideals and we lose the capacity to mature beyond taking refuge in ideals and laws. So our moralism may actually prevent their maturing in a stance of faith.
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