Pietistic Virtue Signaling Number 1: “I’m a Dyed-In-The-Wool Sabbatarian."

I have in mind a series on Pietistic Virtue Signaling. This is the first entry. Keep in mind that I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with the underlying position being discussed, it is the publicly declared or intimated holier-than-thou proclamations that bug me. Pietistic virtue signaling is an insidious way to imply, without saying, that "I'm right and you're wrong, and I'm the better Christian for it." 

We begin with virtue signaling found among some strict Sabbatarians.

 

For background, there is no evidence in the bible than any person, from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Joseph, including all their families and countrymen, were under the command to keep the Sabbath. As a command to human beings, it doesn’t appear util very late in Patriarch history, the 16^th chapter of Exodus:

He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord. (Ex 16:23)

Nor is there any indication that the day set aside for worship (the Christian "Sabbath") was commanded to be the first day of the week. Rather Sunday worship, as Calvin taught, arose more by early tradition than from any Sabbath Day Savings Time shift decreed by God.¹

 

Whether the Sabbath command continues as a requirement or has been abrogated or has been superseded by the eternal sabbath rest in the finished work of Christ (my view) is a matter for legitimate theological discussion. ² None of these positions are in and of themselves “virtue signaling”. But as usual, once a position is claimed, it is time for many to yield to the temptation to double down. 

Sabbatarian Virtue Signaling comes in many forms3, but the most outrageous is the “I would never eat at a restaurant on Sunday because you are making people, possibly Christians, work on the Sabbath” view.4 Choosing to refrain from dining out on Sunday is a matter of liberty, but by using the "workers gotta work" reasoning you are in effect denying that God might be providentially providing the work.  

Strict Sabbatarians of the restaurant denier variety often descend into full blown hypocrisy when they relate their acceptable activities for Sunday, which almost always contribute to someone, somewhere, working. Listening to Christian music on the radio? Somebody is working at the station. Post on social media? Network engineers are monitoring traffic. Argue that they would still be working if you didn’t tweet? The same argument applies to restaurant workers. Argue (as I have heard) that while this is theoretically true, one’s “percentage” contribution is in the noise compared to the restaurant example? That excuse deserves the response used in an old (distasteful) joke about negotiable morality—well now that we’ve established what you are, the only remaining question is the cost. No, if you are really a strict Sabbatarian, I don’t want to hear your virtue signaling unless your Sabbaths look something like the Tevye household in Fiddler on the Roof.

 

Future posts on Pietistic Virtue Signaling could touch on these subjects:

• We have communion every time we assemble. Why wouldn’t you want to sup at the Lord’s Table at every opportunity?
• We follow the Regulative Principle – like the Amish who know just what year in the 19^th century that technology surpassed what was acceptable, we know exactly what instruments and music styles are pleasing to God’s ear.
• We are the Truly Reformed™, the theological direct-line descendants of the Great Reformers and all others else claiming the honorific are pretenders. 
• We are not Biblicists. We derive doctrines using philosophy, and this is nothing like the secret knowledge of the Gnostics. Biblicists are uneducated bumpkins, often with three rows of buck teeth.
• Confessions are not Scripture, and we promise we won’t use them like scripture, but they are the best summaries of scripture, even though they often differ irreconcilably on important matters (like Baptism.) 
• The Ten Commandments are the Eternal Moral Law of God, not merely the Laws of the (Mosaic) Covenant, even though they are referred to that way in scripture.

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¹ Criticizing Seventh Day Adventists merely on the basis of the day they choose to worship is a particularly mean-spirited form of virtue signaling. 

² In any event, resting one day in seven for gathering, worship and rest is at a minimum a good practice. 

 

³ One of the more frustrating sorts of micro virtue signaling related to the sabbath is to feel the necessity of an incessant weekly reminder that “every Sunday is Easter Sunday.”

 

⁴ Not to mention that when personally advantageous, one can opt-out and be excused with a convenient “works of necessity” loophole. This allows a pastor or elder to “keep the sabbath” and preach “keeping the sabbath” while sagely acknowledging “works of necessity” so that they can also, with a solemn nod, excuse those congregants who don’t in fact keep the sabbath. It’s a “works of necessity” loophole for me and mine, but not thee and thine.