The Folly Of Living For One's Reputation

One of the key motivations of many legalists is the misguided desire to please others--to please those inside the church because legalists can misleasingly appear righteous to them, and to please those outside of the church because they think they can obtain an advantage in evangelism.  Regarding the latter, the drive to condemn or avoid Biblically innocent activities in order to not "hurt one's witness" and to uphold a public reputation is a terribly asinine, contra-Biblical approach to everyday decisions.  In addition to the sheer stupidity of legalism (legalistic prescriptions are always rooted in slippery slope fallacies or non sequiturs), there are two enormous ironies that legalistic Christians who revere the concept of reputation fail to acknowledge.

When describing how they want to somehow impress non-Christians by abstaining from some arbitrary list of things (like R-rated movies, alcohol, or opposite gender friendships), legalists demonstrate that they do not understand American culture.  They do not even realize that many non-Christian do not regard something like profanity, bikinis, or violent video games to be anywhere near as controversial as those inside the church often do.  In other words, legalists might try to justify their unbiblical additions to God's moral revelation with the excuse that legalism makes Christians look better in the eyes of the world, when the activities they avoid aren't always considered immoral by others to begin with.

Furthermore, they often forget that Jesus himself had no concern for mere appearances, as observers repeatedly mistook several of his actions for outright examples of sin.  Healing on the Sabbath and interacting with the Samaritan woman without a third party present were only two of the nonsinful things Jesus did that attracted gratuitous controversy, despite Mosaic Law permitting them.  How ironic it is that Jesus himself lived in a way that blatantly disregarded the selfish concern of many legalists--that is, the concern for their own reputations in the eyes of irrational people!  To base one's moral decisions on the perception of others is to reject sound moral epistemology and proper motivations.

Whether someone simply thinks another person is behaving immorally is of no importance, as moral obligations are not shaped by perception and preference.  As long as there is no sin involved in a particular activity or any sinful motives present, one is free to do whatever one wishes.  The person who makes decisions in order to appease the worthless perceptions of the average person (unless the goal is manipulation) is a slave to illusory appearances that are nothing more than red herrings to someone's true character.  A slanderous person is already guilty the moment they unjustly accuse someone of sinning when they have done nothing wrong (John 7:24), and there is no need to treat them as if their whims have any authority.