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What Is “Easy Believism” that Is Rampant in Christianity?

What Is “Easy Believism” that Is Rampant in Christianity?

Last updated on: June 15, 2026 at 11:12 pm by Kermit Zarley

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What Is “Easy Believism” that Is Rampant in Christianity? 2026-06-15T23:12:10-07:00 Kermit Zarley

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The Holy Bible

In the over 2,oo0 years of the history of Christianity, the church has swung like a pendulum between law and grace, between legalism and easy believism multiple times. “What’s that,” you say?

Law Versus Grace

Legalism is the requirement to meet certain standards the church decides for attaining salvation and/or living a Christian life. For example, when I was a young Christian, the church was still mired in the debate between law and grace. Some fundamentalist Christians were legalists, alleging that if you dance, drink, or smoke you’re not a Christian. But in the mid-20th century, that started to change. Evangelicalism arose with its emphasis on God’s grace and faith. That is, God forgives sins and gives his salvation to people by them believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Well, yes but.

Easy believism is the assertion that you can believe in Jesus for salvation and live any way you please. Eventually, at least in the U.S., evangelicals began debating this within themselves as to whether a person must produce good works as evidence of genuine faith. This debate had become especially prominent earlier, between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, although with added nuances.

A key Bible verse cited by some Protestants and many evangelicals was that which was written by apostle Paul, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2.8-9). I actually became born again in a moment of time, with my Sunday school teacher when I was 13 years old, by believing in this verse that our teacher had our class memorize.

Easy Believism Is the Old Antinomianism

But about that time, during the mid-20th century, a movement arose, especially among American evangelicals, in opposition to Christian fundamentalism that so emphasized grace and faith as Paul sets forth in that verse that it was asserted that it didn’t matter how you lived your life just as long as you “believed in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.” That was the standard language used, and that is the way I have always defined my Christian profession.

But that idea of some, that you didn’t need to produce evidence in your life of your salvation, came to be rightly called “easy believism,” meaning that you only needed to “believe in Jesus” to obtain salvation and that it had nothing to do with how you lived your life. But that was wrong. It is called Antinomianism, the name of an error that dates back into the early centuries of Christianity. As wise King Solomon wrote, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Luther’s Mistake About Justification and Works

We’re not saved by good works, but if our faith doesn’t produce good works, it is not genuine faith but pseudo faith. Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, actually didn’t seem to grasp this truth. He emphasized “justification by faith” in the apostle Paul’s Romans 3 to the loss of another truth. Jesus’ brother James had also written in holy scripture, “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2.24).

Luther thought this statement by James was in opposition to Paul’s statement, “A person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law” (Romans 3.28). In Luther’s German translation of the New Testament, he had wrongly inserted the word (in German) “alone” after “faith,” thus “justified by faith alone.” Luther therefore questioned whether the epistle of James belonged in the New Testament, calling it “a right strawey epistle.” (But then, Luther also questioned that the book of Revelation belonged in the New Testament.)

This seeming conundrum between Paul and James is forever put to rest by the scholarly “New Perspective on Paul” that has been well explained by many scholars, especially N.T. Wright and James D.G. Dunn. And on the 500th anniversary of Protestantism, in 2017, both the Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church rightly came to an agreement about this matter that had divided them half a millennium.

There is no disagreement between Paul and James about this. Paul says many times in his letters that real faith produces good works, which are the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5.22-23). For example, he writes, “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?” (1 Corinthians 6.9). Indeed, that is exactly what Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount about “evildoers” departing from him at the judgment.

“Bear Fruit Worthy of Repentance”

John the Baptist certainly opposed the reasoning behind Antinomianism. We read that when he was baptizing in the Jordan River, “When he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees [Jewish religious sects] coming for baptism,” he did not mince words when he said to them, “‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor,” … Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every three therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire'” (Matthew 3.7-10 NRSV).

In fact, repentance and faith go together like a hand in a glove. Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. Oftentimes, people can only believe after they have come to a place in their lives where they see themselves in need of humility and repentance toward God.

“I Never Knew You, Go Away from Me Evildoers”

Jesus also rejected this easy believism. He said at the beginning of his public ministry, in his Sermon on the Mount, that on the yet future day of judgment, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me you evildoers'” (Matthew 7.21-23).

UFC America 250

Yesterday, I posted about President Trump’s celebration outside the White House with UFC America 250, a martial arts Ultimate Fighting Championship exhibit that many have been comparing to the Roman Empire’s gladiator fighting exhibits in Rome’s Colosseum. It was both a commemoration of the 250-year history of the United States of American and celebration of Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.

Josh Hokit won the fighting match by knocking out Derrick Lewis in the second round. In his post-fight speech, he uttered expletives and unashamedly exclaimed, “And if I’m gonna say anthing, there’s only one person more incredible than the incredible hulk, and that’s my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Then he added concerning former President Barak Obama’s wife and former First Lady, “And lastly: Michele Obama is a man! Am I right, America?”

No, Mr. Hokit, you are neither right about Michele Obama nor about Jesus Christ being your Lord and Savior! I cannot accept a man as a brother in Christ who talks that way. And America, especially its president—whose idea this was and who made it happen—should be deeply ashamed at what Mr. Hokit said. And it is worse that no one rebuked him publicly for saying it. Rather, when he did, President Trump smiled.

Well, of course, Trump came into the White House riding on his allegation that President Obama had a fraudulent birth certificate and constantly bashing him and his presidency. Moreover, Donald Trump sure sounds like a racist against blacks, and that is what Mr. Hokit was espousing.

Conclusion

Very politically divided America needs drastically to get its house together. For Jesus said, “A house divided cannot stand.” And neither will a man remain standing at the judgment of God who embraces pseudo faith now, which does not produce kindness and love of neighbor, but produces hatred and arrogance.

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