I don't think what I'm about to suggest is all that revolutionary. I would hope there's common ground here, regardless of whether you're a conservative or progressive, Republican or Democrat, right-wing nutcase or bed-wetting liberal.

And this has nothing specifically to do with the Cap and Trade bill the House of Reps passed yesterday, although that legislation was the inspiration behind this post (as was the TARP vote earlier this year).

So, without further ado, here are some basic parliamentary principles I'd love to see our elected representatives follow:

1. A bill presented to Congress needs to be about what it's about. In other words, every part of the bill needs to be about the main theme of the bill. For instance, if the bill is about stopping global climate change, then it can't have provisions in it that authorize the expanding of some non-climate-change related boondoggle project (a museum, airport, etc) in an on-the-fence member's district
2. As a corollary, if said member wants to use federal funds to fund the aforementioned boondoggle project, he or she should submit a bill to Congress that is specifically about funding said project.
3. Voting on any bill in Congress should not occur until the bill has been finalized and published on the internet for at least 72 hours. Most bills before Congress run hundreds or thousands of pages (though principle #1 above would put the kibosh on that). It's insane for our Congresspeople to vote on bills that they haven't read. Most of us won't spend our own money on something if we haven't done at least a little research to know what we're getting. How come Congress thinks it's OK to spend our money when they have no real way of knowing what they are spending it on?
4. As a corollary, it's insulting for our representatives to vote on bills that their own constituents have not been at least given the opportunity to read. It makes the whole business look really shady.
5. I realize that there's give and take when debating pieces of legislation, and that a bill will morph over time. So I'd relax the 72 hour time-line for additional amendments to a bill that arise in debate. But any amendment would need to adhere strictly to principle #1 above, and at least a 24 hour period should be required for amendments to be published and digested before rushing through a vote.

A note to our Congressional leadership: I understand that it seems important, sometimes, to finish a vote before a long weekend or holiday. But, trust me, the world will survive just fine, even if it has to wait a few more days for our representatives to make sure they know what they are voting on.

These principles seem fairly common-sense to me. Uncontroversial, even. Do I ask too much?

From Mona Charen over at The Corner

New York State has decided to use taxpayer funds to pay women to donate their eggs for embryonic stem cell research. That didn't take long. We warned, didn't we, that proponents of this research who claimed that they were only going to use the frozen embryos in fertility clinics slated for destruction anyway were deceiving the public. Welcome to the brave new world of creating human embryos in order to use them as commodities. This is a terrible descent.

With a nod from John Calvin, the Geneva city council in 1553 burned Michael Servetus at the stake. Servetus was a heretic who denied the Trinity of persons within the Godhead and denied paedobaptism. While Calvin preferred to give Servetus a quick death via decapitation, he had to compromise with the council who preferred to let Servetus burn to death.

On a related note, a few years earlier, Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli, and his council, persecuted Anabaptists by giving them their "third baptism": a death by drowning. Zwingli would later die by the sword, fighting Catholics in neighboring counties.

Sadly, the history of Christianity is rich with bloodshed. Thankfully, these days we don't kill guys like Joel Osteen and whoever the guy is who wrote The Shack, but I think the history of dealing with heresy should teach us that orthodoxy -- right thinking -- really matters. To be sure, I don't condone certain ways the church has dealt with heresies in the past; in fact, I find many of those ways appalling. While I'm not a pacifist, I tend to think that the Anabaptists had a lot of right ideas when it came to their aversion to violence.

Heresy is serious, and an appropriate response to heresy is something the evangelical church needs to grapple with in this age of pluralism, "tolerance," and sweltering anti-Christianity. As far as an appropriate response goes, violence is not the answer.

If this is intentionally awful, it is brilliant.

I'll lay my cards on the table: I'm not a big fan of the culture war.

Here are some reasons why:

1. Its expectation is foolish.
Whether you believe America was ever a "Christian nation" or not, it is theologically naive and demonstrably false to think laws or policies make anyone a Christian. You cannot create or recapture a people for Christ by illegalizing sin. (Which, by the way, is not to say that certain sins shouldn't be illegal. It is only to say that, for instance, outlawing gay marriage or repealing Roe v. Wade won't make anybody a Christian, much less make America "a Christian nation.")

2. Its medium is moralism, not gospel.
This is similar to my point above. It makes kingdom militancy about religion, not gospel. It seeks a Christian coercion of others toward better behavior, not an incarnational sharing with others of the better Way.

3. It is theologically naive.
It is the height of weirdness to expect people who don't know Jesus to act like they do.

4. It is often hypocritical.
It is the height of weirdness to expect people who don't know Jesus to act like they do especially when we can't get our own house in order. So long as large numbers of Christians continue contributing to the divorce statistics, the porn industry, and more acceptable sins like gluttony and gossip and greed, we have zero business telling the world how to act. Judgment begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). Repent, Church!

5. It battles against flesh and blood.
We're not supposed to do that. (Eph. 6:12)

6. Its treasure is temporary.
I am not overly concerned with the culture war because it is a battle for something that doesn't last. Culture is temporary. I am far more interested in the transformation of peoples through the transformation of people than I am in the subduing of culture through the modification of behavior. Nobody ever got into heaven by acting better.

7. It makes idols of comfort and safety and propriety.
The culture war is largely driven by fear. We're afraid our public schools will ruin our children, we're afraid gay people will ruin our families. We're afraid a Democrat will ruin our country, we're afraid liberals will ruin our neighborhoods. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to protect our family, and safety of course is not a bad thing. But neither is it a biblical virtue. Ditto comfort. Or have you not read the New Testament? I'm just gonna put this out there, but maybe it's God's design for us as people and for Christians throughout all time to endure hardship, danger, persecution, and even death. Wanting not to suffer is human. Thinking we deserve not to is unChristian.

8. It has no root in Jesus' ministry.
Jesus knew heart change didn't come through political power, cultural pressure, or zealotry, so he was keenly disinterested in those things.

9. It mangles mission.
The culture war sets the Church above and against the world, rather than in but not of the world. It turns us into picketers and politicos. It makes us suspicious and speculative and sensationalist. It takes relationship completely out of the missional equation. It turns us from peaceful ambassadors for Christ into pontificating warriors for Christianity. It does not ask us to serve and sacrifice, which are non-negotiables for Christian mission, but to maneuver and argue.

In Romans 1:5, Paul writes:

Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.

A few things:
Paul says we "call" people. This is the work of gospel proclamation, carried out in both word and deed.
Paul does mention "obedience," but this obedience is the kind that "comes from faith." Faith comes first, then obedience. It never ever ever ever works the other way.
Lastly, and most importantly:

10. The culture war is carried out for our name's sake, not Jesus'.
I am not a fan of gay marriage or Roe v. Wade, and even though I would vote to outlaw the former and repeal the latter, neither of those actions in themselves will make a single unbeliever say "How wonderful Christ is!"
The bitter truth is that the Christian culture war is not carried out for Jesus' glory and renown, but for ours. It makes "Judeo-Christian values" the end-game, the treasure of our mission. And that is idolatry. Nobody was ever legally or argumentatively or even culturally convinced to believe in Jesus. But millions have been loved and served and submitted to into believing.

Dying for somebody says a whole lot more than debating them.

I choose the gospel. Come hell or highwater, come a liberal administration in Washington for the rest of my life or actual suffering. My treasure is not Christianity, but Christ. My hope is not a Christian nation but a Christ-saturated universe. I trust not in princes but in the King of Kings. I choose war on hell and death through the liberating power of Jesus in the glorious gospel of the grace of God.
For the glory of God.

(Cross-posted at GDC)

Make it stop . . .

EVAN THOMAS: Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He’s-

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

THOMAS: He's going to bring all different sides together.

Emphasis mine.


[H/T Jonah]

Most Americans are against abortion now.

A majority of Americans now say they oppose abortion rights, according to a Gallup poll released today. It is the first time since the polling outfit began asking the question in 1995 that a majority of Americans have held that position.

I wonder why it changed. Theories?

This is the first year since such questions have been surveyed that the majority of Americans are identifying as "pro-life" on the question of abortion. It will of course take much more than popular opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, but it is quite remarkable, this shift in opinion, nonetheless.

How idiotic it is, then, to create martyrs for the pro-choice cause. How idiotic it is to risk dissolving popular sentiment for the pro-life cause. One murderous weirdo risks turning any ground gained back against the cause of the right of the unborn to live.

It doesn't advance the cause at all. It sets it back. And adds more doctors to the ranks of the resolute and emboldened abortionist trade, more years to the era of abortion. More babies.

And of course apart from murder being an illogical and impractical strategy, it is also wrong. Which is to say, even if it was a logical strategy and a practical one, it still would be a sinful one.

I've read both 1984 and Brave New World. I've long thought that the brutal world of 1984 would not have been sustainable. In many ways, I think history has already shown this.

Huxley's world seems far more probable, in my opinion.

Here's an interesting comparison, in illustrated form.

[H/T Jonah]

There's an interesting article on NPR about Kevin Roose, who posed as an evangelical Christian student at Liberty University for a semester to do research for his book The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University. His observations and responses in the article turned out more edifying than I would have expected.

Here's an excerpt:

Roose tried to follow all the rules, even buying a Christian self-help book to help him avoid cursing. For a couple weeks he walked around campus saying "Glory be!" and "Mercy!" Turns out Liberty students don't actually talk like that, Roose reports.

"They would look at me like, 'Who is this guy, and what strange, isolated home school did he come from?'" Roose laughs.

Fellow students knew Roose had transferred from Brown, but few suspected his secular background — and none knew he was writing a book. Once the semester was over, he had to come clean with his new friends.

"It was one of the hardest things I had ever done, because these had become some of my best friends," Roose says. He expected them to feel betrayed — and expected to do a lot of apologizing. Instead, he says, something amazing happened.

"Everyone forgave me — immediately," he says. "It was unreal how quickly their surprise turned to real compassion and excitement."

"They were all excited about the book and excited that I had given Liberty a fair look, and an open-minded look — instead of just doing a drive-by article."

But there was just a little disappointment. "They thought, given the semester with me, that they would have done a better job of converting me," Roose says.

They may have done a better job than they thought. Even though he's back at Brown, Roose still tries to pray every day. He says the act of prayer changes him, referring to the writings of Christian author Oswald Chambers.

[H/T These guys]

Love is popular. People love love. Or at least they think they do. People seem to want love without standards. For example, some kids will say things like, “You don’t love me” when their parents enforce rules. Some grown-ups act the same way. And of course, the main argument for the pro-homosexual marriage folks is "love." But what is love? I believe that true love has standards. Love has a skeleton, or it doesn't have any strength at all. Love has to stand on and stand for something, or it is valueless.

The Bible speaks often about grace, love and spiritual things. And there are Bible verses that balance each of those things with truth. Jesus came full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Jesus said that we must worship in spirit and truth (John 1:24). And John says that grace, mercy and peace from God will be with us “in truth and love” (2 John 3). We must have both. Truth without love is harmful and love without truth doesn’t help anyone.

Yet there are many who want grace without the truth of sin. (Which isn't really grace at all.)
Yet there are many who want spirit without truth. (e.g. "I'm a spiritual person, I just don't like organized religion.")
Yet there are many who want love without truth. (e.g. "If you love me, you'll let me do what I want.")

A good example is parents who claim to love their children, but never discipline them. Because that kind of treatment spoils (i.e. "ruins") them, I would argue that that kind of "love" isn't love at all. Love without truth becomes idolatrous self-love, and a kind of hatred for everyone else. "He who spares the rod, hates his son" (Proverbs 13:24).

A parent who keeps rescuing their addicted adult child is showing love without truth. And in the long run, sparing that child from consequences only brings harm. I had one person tell me that they almost "loved" their adult child to death, because they kept rescuing them from consequences.

Truth matters. What we do must always be tied to truth. In the small letter of 2 John, the old apostle says that no one should welcome anyone who claims to be a Christian teacher but denies that Jesus is the Messiah, God’s son in the flesh. John says, “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take him into your house or welcome him. Anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work” (2 John 10-11). Wow. John is saying that we should not show hospitality to or help people that teach falsehood. Some might claim that turning people away “isn’t very loving.” But real love is always married to truth. To bring someone into your home who will be leading people astray does not love those they would lead astray. Likewise, helping someone who is hurting themselves or others is not loving or helpful. Sometimes the right thing, even the loving thing is to say, “No.”

However in John’s very next letter, he says we should practice hospitality. “We ought to show hospitality to such men so that we may work together for the truth” (3 John 8). In this case he’s talking about showing hospitality to people who are teaching the truth. See the reason for the difference? Hospitality in each case is tied to truth.

This is likewise true in everything we do. Love divorced from truth cannot stand on its own. And no one can stand truth divorced from love. They need each other. In Jesus, we find the perfect balance.

Jesus is love and truth all wrapped up in one.

But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did... This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence. (I John 2:5-6, 3:16-19)

This is genius.



Seriously, Brant Hansen makes listening to the local CCM station in the morning not only okay, he makes it darn near necessary. :-)

Why is flaunting your body in a bikini on national TV not a big deal for evangelical Christians?

Why are people like James Dobson so obsequious to a certain beauty contestant simply because she (rightfully) took a stand against homosexual "marriage," despite the message of superficial beauty and sexuality she communicates to thousands upon thousands of Christian girls?

Welcome to the new Christianity. We've got everything the world has -- bikini-clad babes, rock star musicians, and political rock stars -- plus we get a feel good JESUS who wouldn't dare put a standard of Puritan holiness on us. Thank God.

I'm not a huge fan of CCM. I used to be huge into it in my youth. These days I do listen to the local CCM station from time to time, but I couldn't tell you who sings what. A lot of the bands sound the same to me. I don't mean that as a criticism necessarily; just an observation, or how they strike me. In any event, I'm trying to point all that out to say that I have defended both CCM from criticism I don't think is warranted and the Christian retail establishment from same. (Yes, acknowledging that "Jesus junk" is icky.)

In any event, I mean to point out two things with that lengthy introduction:
a) I'm not a drooling CCM fanboy
b) Neither am I some "CCM must die!" roaring lamb

But I think this criticism from a contributor at the CCM forum might have some traction:

I've been doing music for most of my adult life, but I never broke through in any big way. After a while, I had to simply accept the fact that it was not God's will for me to be the "next big thing" in Christian music, so I settled into a life of simply staying busy making music, without the perks that come with fame.

But I got to thinking...why WOULD you want to make it big in Christian music? Because when you consider it....Christian music is the one genre that virtually erases it's older artists from history.

Think about it....when I was in college in the late 80's, the biggest names in Christian music were bands like Petra, DeGarmo & Key, White Heart, Mylon LeFevre, etc. Ask any ten teenagers you care to find today about those bands, and if you're real lucky, one or two of them MIGHT have heard of Petra...and that's about it. Likewise for any of the artists popular back in the day. And as we get further away from the decade of the 90's, most of those artists have likewise fallen into oblivion.

Where is the "classic" Christian music? Why doesn't radio acknowledge these older groups or songs? Our local Christian FM refuses to play anything more than five years old, with the possible exception of "Awesome God" by Rich Mullins. And the closest Gospel Music Channel comes is in the form of short snippets of older performances on the "Best Of The Doves" program. Why don't the record labels re-release some of those titles from the 80's and 90's?

Like I said, why would you want to make it big in this business, when chances are you'll be forgotten in ten years (if that long)?

There is a hint of "Man, the older stuff is so much better than the new stuff" bitterness here. (And I think the older stuff is better than the newer stuff, personally. :-) But I think he has a point.

With a few exceptions, CCM artists have a very short shelf-life.

The only pushback I can think of is that it's not like lots of mainstream 80's and 90's stars are burning up the Top 40 charts either. With exceptions like Madonna, Janet Jackson, and U2, "older" artists aren't likely to end up on MTV or the like these days either. (Remember in the early years of MTV when Tom Petty and George Harrison -- who were old even back then -- might show up in videos between The Bangles and Depeche Mode? Those were the days, eh?)

But in any event, if we're going to have a Christian subculture of the arts, shouldn't it be somewhat different?
The more I think about it, the more I think this is the most glaring sign that CCM culture is just an aping of the values and spirit of the world. Except in this case, maybe we're worse.

Lars nails it. I've excerpted parts of what he posted below, but, as they say, go read the whole thing.

It’s perfect Leftist logic—If you act like me, you’re an awful person.

(By the way, this is an argument every victim of abuse is extremely familiar with, which is probably one reason why I react so strongly to it.)

The logic (as I’ve mentioned before) seems to be, “We can do it, because we don’t believe in moral absolutes. But since you do believe in moral absolutes, if you act like us you’re hypocrites. And thus evil. It’s only evil when a hypocrite does it, you see. So we can do anything we want, but you have to obey a higher standard.”

. . .

Take the case of Carrie Prejean, the Miss USA finalist who probably lost the contest because she stated (in a pretty namby-pamby fashion, to be honest) her conviction that marriage should be limited to male-female couples. (Interestingly, pageant officials criticized her for not suppressing her true convictions, in order not to give offense. In other words, she should have been a hypocrite in this case. It’s pretty hard to please the Left.)

Today the news is that somebody came up with some nude or semi-nude photos Miss Prejean posed for a few years back (I haven’t seen them; can’t comment on their tastefulness or sleaze).

There is a message here, and very clear one. Oppose us, and we will deploy vast resources to destroy your reputation. “You’ve got a nice life here. It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it.”

We’ve seen it before, and it shows no sign of letting up. Our opponents honestly believe that, because we are all bigoted, ignorant hypocrites, it is not only not wrong, but positively virtuous to destroy us without mercy.

What I haven’t worked out is how to respond to this.

Do we fight fire with fire? Are we even able to do that, in light of our massive inferiority in terms of media support?

Do we take a “turn the other cheek” approach, trusting that the American people, in the long run, are decent, and will repudiate such tactics? (Harry Reid seems to be counting on that, and it really irks me to play into the hands of such as he.) And I don’t believe “do as you would be done by” applies to government matters in general. (If they did, the government couldn’t levy taxes or punish criminals.) But government and politics are different things, so I’m not sure how far to stretch it.

I just don’t know.

I do know I’m getting angry.

Malaria kills over 2,000 people a day.

I think the reason a lot of people are going nutso about swine flu right now is because they think it threatens white Americans.

I have long said, and wholeheartedly believe, that the Bride of Christ is beautiful. But I don't mean that in a physical sense, but rather because I believe her destiny, and her current, emerging¹ reality, is great beauty. Perfection.

I love the church.

I also think iMonk makes a great point about a big problem in the market-driven church in America:

Appalachia has a lot of ugly people. We produce a bumper crop of them, and you’ll find plenty of them in church, in Gospel singing groups and on local Christian TV.

Southeastern Kentucky hasn’t yet heard what most of evangelicalism lives by: Keep the beautiful people up front.

Good looking hunky preacher boys. Gorgeous babettes on those worship teams. Authors, speakers, teachers: good lookin’ and keep ‘em looking better all the time. (Thank God for moder enhancements of the human body. Amen?)

Every see an ad for an evangelical church? Any Tom Pettys or Susan Boyles on that commercial?

Church web site? Oh my. Don’t use your own people. Use professional models. I want my senior adults to look like the happy consumers of various enhancement products. Smile Bob! Your hair may be gray, but the rest of you is 25.

And Contemporary Christian Music? Susan Boyle types….your phone is NOT ringing.

No, evangelicalism may not come out and say it, but God really does prefer his people looking good.

¹ I used the word "emerging" here but this has nothing to do with the faddish Emerging/Emergent church moniker.

In The New York Times yesterday Bono, in his usually poetic way, recounted his Easter experience and compared it to his inclination toward "economic redemption" (as seen in debt relief to Africa).

Christianity, it turns out, has a rhythm — and it crescendos this time of year. The rumba of Carnival gives way to the slow march of Lent, then to the staccato hymnals of the Easter parade. From revelry to reverie. After 40 days in the desert, sort of ...

It’s a transcendent moment for me — a rebirth I always seem to need. Never more so than a few years ago, when my father died. I recall the embarrassment and relief of hot tears as I knelt in a chapel in a village in France and repented my prodigal nature — repented for fighting my father for so many years and wasting so many opportunities to know him better. I remember the feeling of “a peace that passes understanding” as a load lifted. Of all the Christian festivals, it is the Easter parade that demands the most faith — pushing you past reverence for creation, through bewilderment at the idea of a virgin birth, and into the far-fetched and far-reaching idea that death is not the end. The cross as crossroads. Whatever your religious or nonreligious views, the chance to begin again is a compelling idea. . . .

Strangely, as we file out of the small stone church into the cruel sun, I think of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, whose now combined fortune is dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty. Agnostics both, I believe. I think of Nelson Mandela, who has spent his life upholding the rights of others. A spiritual man — no doubt. Religious? I’m told he would not describe himself that way.

Not all soul music comes from the church.

Read the whole thing, if you're so inclined.

Dan at Cerulean Sanctum asks a great question, which is counter-intuitive in the current culture of angst about the feminization of the American church: Is the American Church too Macho? An excerpt:

I was part of a church at one time that had about 3,500 attendees. That church had a fairly level ratio of men and women. At that time, the church had groups for motorcycle-riding, gun-shooting, and many others with a “just for the fellowship” emphasis that would appeal to men. Fine by me—I’m all for fellowship groups. The only problem was that this same church had one men’s Bible study and about a dozen women’s Bible studies. I was painfully aware of that inexplicably lopsided ratio too. Why? Because I was the men’s Bible study leader. When I asked why there was only one men’s Bible study group, the answer I usually got was that they’d not been able to maintain more than one or two for any length of time. (What made it even nuttier was about half of the ten or so men that filtered through my group on a regular basis didn’t even attend the church.)

It seems to me that men will show up for church stuff when they have a chance to show off their machismo, but flex some spiritual muscles? Not so much.

So I don’t think it’s as much of a case of the Church being feminized as it is a case of men surrendering their God-appointed roles as spiritual leaders within the Church. They’d rather watch March Madness than bow their knees at a 24-hour prayer meeting for the soul of the nation. Meanwhile, elderly grannies are keeping the devils at bay.

So the next time I hear some guy whimpering about how women are taking over the church, maybe a swift kick to the ‘nads will get him to wise up.

Or some spiritual equivalent.

See? This is what I've been on about.

Guys, we need to man up. But keep the pointy sticks at home.

[Hat tip: Transforming Sermons]

Last night on the way home from small group I listened to the guy on the local Christian radio station give a ten-minute presentation of what he learned in church the previous day. It boiled down to an appeal to make Jesus our "role model." (Yes, using those words.)

There is no better role model than Jesus. You won't find me arguing against that to anyone. And wanting Jesus for his benefits but not for his cross is a serious problem in Christianity.
But there was zero gospel content in this presentation. It could've been delivered by the Dalai Lama. Richard Gere thinks Jesus is an awesome role model. The world thinks Jesus is a good role model, and in fact, most of them wish Christians acted more like Jesus (or at least, more like their perception of Jesus).

"Jesus as role model" is not the gospel. At one point in his spiel, the radio dude hat-tipped self-help books and advice columns, saying "We read all those things, but we never think to go to the Bible for God's advice!"
As if the alternative to advice from the world is more advice, albeit from the Bible.

The gospel is not advice.

This is yet another example of something I've been harping on in my last two years of writing: just because you dress casual, play rock music, and talk a lot about grace, doesn't mean you aren't a legalist. And in fact, the self-professed "culturally relevant" churches today are the chief proponents of legalism in Christianity. They don't think they are, because they equate legalism with fundamentalism, with rigidity and dourness, with suits and ties and organ-led hymns. They equate legalism with "don't"s.

"Do" isn't any less legalistic than "don't."
"Do"s and "don't"s are just flip-sides of the same coin. The gospel isn't "do" any more than it is "don't"; both are merely religion.

And a Church that is mobilized with a gospel of "do good" might make for good p.r. for our churches, but the gospel of "do good" cannot really scandalize a lost and broken world, because most people know how to do good without the help of Christianity. They don't need the Church to be "good people."

And so the hip church believes it is railing against legalism and oferring grace because it creates culturally relevant, casual, innovative environments, because it makes the message of the Bible one of practical stuff to do, because it is cheerful, because it takes WWJD? seriously, and all the while they still don't know the power of the gospel of Christ's finished work, sufficient for salvation and fit for proclamation.
Instead we get the gospel of busywork.

Should we do good? Absolutely! Hearers of the word who don't "do" are only fooling themselves and have not the Spirit within them.
But if the gist and bulk of our proclamation is "do," we aren't preaching the gospel, which Scripture also calls us to do.

Remember that the Pharisees were the religious leaders who missed the gospel because of their focus on do's and don'ts. Pharisaical legalism was just self-help without good p.r.
This is why today's Pharisees aren't the concerned folks in the pews worried about their discipleship (as they are so often accused), but rather the preacher on the stage whose message is always helpful tips on how to get better at being a Christian.

We are eager to hand over our sin to God; we are ever reluctant to put our righteousness on the altar.

Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works.
-– Robert Farrar Capon

Oh, for a recovery of the glory of the gospel!

(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church)