Rules to live by ...
Make Up Rules and Try To Force Everyone Else To Live By Them
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Some Christians view grey areas as those moral zones in which one believer has the right to brow-beat another. Thus, if one believer thinks it is wrong for another to go to football games, the first believer has the right to exercise judgment on the second. This 'sin-sniffing' delves into all areas, and the things that get lumped into this cauldron of evil deeds are quite numerous: attending the opera, playing cards, atttending any kind of motion pictures, owning a television, listening to rock or country-western or even Mozart, investing in the stock market, observing Christmas with a decorated tree, reading mystery novels, spouses having separate checking accounts, women wearing make-up or slacks, etc. What all these areas have in common is that they are not discussed in scripture. Thus, if one wants to label them as evil, he either has to do some rather ingenious interpretation of the Bible or else simply appeal to one's conscience as the standard by which others are to be measured.
We all can see the ludicrousness of such a stance when it comes to grey zones that are inoffensive to me. But when there is something that I have found offensive, the natural tendency is for me to make sure everyone else around me abides by the same rules.
One of the hallmarks of modern American Christianity is its preoccupation with a 'formula faith.' Tremendously popular are conferences that address conflicts between parents and youth and how to resolve them. One well-known such conference turns (occasionally) good advice into hundreds of rules that can suffocate one's walk with God. We are enamored of the 'How to' books that work for others and perhaps may work for us. All too often, once a person has found a tailor-made Bible-reading schedule, or a tailor-made pattern of prayer or diet or method of raising children or love-making technique, he writes a book about it and proclaims its universal applicability and even its normativeness. The reason such sells? Because legalism is endemic to human nature. We can package such as 'practical Christianity' or 'a wise and godly lifestyle' or 'principles to live by,' but at bottom when such advice goes beyond the scriptures and turns into more than advice, it is legalism. Such a preoccupation with legalism is seen in church membership requirements, missionary and pastoral ordination bodies, and Bible college/seminary codes of conduct. Take a look at a catalog of almost any evangelical institute of higher learning. You will notice that all too often the code of conduct section will spend an inordinate amount of space making grey areas taboo while spending almost no space articulating what the Bible declares to be sinful behavior.
The full article is here at bible.org . It is mainly about alcohol in the Bible, but it has some interesting observations about the 'legalists' who go around with a "I'm more pious than you" attitude.