SCRUPULOSITY.... Unhealthy Excessive Religious Behavior

Scrupulous is a word to describe someone who is diligent, thorough, and extremely attentive to details in following the rules or requirements that is asked of them. They are very concerned to avoid doing any thing wrong.  On the surface, being scrupulous might be considered a good thing, but if excessive, it could possibly lead to unhealthy religious behavior called Scrupulosity.  

Common Symptoms of Scrupulosity:

• Believes that religious practice must be 100 percent perfect.
• Critical of others that are perceived to be sinful. 
• Believes in a "Check-list" type God. 
• Overly concerned about keeping every Letter of the Law. 
• Devout in their outward observances especially in places of Worship
• Obedient in keeping the rules/commandments out of fear of punishment.
• Proud of being a member of "The Not Even Once Club"
• Confesses to every indiscretion.
• Fears that things are not being done quite the "right way"
• Believes you earn your love from God. 
• Overzealous in the need to keep religious tradition.

All of these symptoms could describe perfectly the Pharisees at the time of Christ. They were religious zealots and were scrupulous in following the Law of Moses. Their scrupulosity was so deep that they could not recognize the Savior of the World, the actual giver of the Law of Moses.

Common  Ways to Avoid of Scrupulosity:

• Remember that we all fall short and make mistakes .
• Forgive others of their faults. 
• Life is so much more than a check list of "to-do's" to cross things off.  
• Be guided by the Spirit of the Law. 
• Your inner commitment is more important than the outer appearance
• Be obedient to God's commandments because of your love for Him.
• Repent and access the Christ's Atonement when we sin.
• Confess your weakness and ask for strength to overcome
• Relish in the fact that someone does things differently than you.  
• Remember the Mercy of Christ and His love for us 
• Avoid perpetuating false traditions.

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Sidenote:

Another interesting thing about the Pharisees is that they cooperated with the Romans in order to preserve their own position among Israel. I bring this up because I recently came across an interesting 600 page dissertation about a possible parallel in our time.. If true, it is very unsettling.  

LINK TO DISSERTION

"This dissertation studies a small American religious group that survived unscathed during the Third Reich. Some fifteen thousand members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, lived under National Socialism. Unlike persecuted Jews and Jehovah's Witnesses, and other small American-based sects that suffered severe restrictions, the Mormons worshiped freely under Hitler's regime. They survived by stressing congruence between church doctrine and Nazi dogma. Mormons emphasized their interest in genealogical research and sports, sent their husbands into the Wehrmacht and their sons into the Hitler Youth, and prayed for a Nazi victory in wartime. Mormon leaders purged all Jewish references from hymnals, lesson plans and liturgical practices, and shunned their few Jewish converts. They resurrected a doctrinal edict that required deference to civil authority, which the Mormons had not always obeyed. Some Mormons imagined fanciful connections with Nazism, to the point that a few believed Hitler admired their church, copied its welfare program, and organized the Nazi party along Mormon lines."

"This dissertation builds upon Christine Elizabeth King's theory of a common Weltanschauung between Mormons and Nazis, and Steven Carter's description of the Mormons' “accommodation” with National Socialism. Instead of a passive approach, however, the Mormons pursued aggressive and shameless “ingratiation” with the Nazi state.""This work also examines memory. Mormons later tried to forget their pandering to the Nazis, especially when large numbers of Germans immigrated to Utah in the post war period. When the story of a martyred Mormon resister, Helmuth Hübener, emerged in the 1970s, church officials interfered with the research of scholars at Brigham Young University. They feared that Hübener's example would incite Mormon youth to rebel against dictators abroad, hurt the church's relations with communist East Germany, and would offend recent German Mormon immigrants in Utah. A few Mormons shunned and harassed Hübener's surviving coconspirators. In recent years, Hübener— excommunicated for rebellion against the Nazis but later restored to full church membership—has been rehabilitated as a recognized hero of Mormonism. A new collective memory has been forged, one of wartime courage and suffering, while the inconvenient past is being conveniently discarded."