The self-righteous mindset was directly related to their beliefs, unless of course interpreting the Law of Moses wrong is an action and not a belief. [/sarcasm]
How, exactly, is it possible for you to conflate "interpreting the law of Moses wrong" and "accepting certain dogmatic statements about Jesus"?
Interpreting the law of Moses is demonstrated by actions.
Jesus' teachings and exhortations were in line with Isaiah's take on what needs to be done from a Prophetical perspective in regards to the actions of Israel. Isaiah, as well as Jeremiah, was pretty inclusive.
The Pharisees and other Prophets were extremely exclusive to the point of removing lepers, eunuchs, and other undesirables from society.
Whose interpretation of the law of Moses do you follow?
Do you believe in an exclusionary or inclusionary Christianity?
We see Jesus not only setting their actions right, but their beliefs as well (for instance when he said that what goes into a man does not make him unclean, an idea repeated in Paul). There is not so large a dichotomy between actions and beliefs.
Whoah.
Another interesting spin but the whole "what goes out of a man's mouth makes him unclean is about actions.
Passage:
[bible]Matthew 15:11[/bible]
Our words and actions can hurt. When we consider others worthless and unworthy of God's love, we are capable of doing anything to them.
In the Sermon on The Mount, what was the only action that Jesus stated would send one to Gehanna?
Was it not calling another a fool? Why is that?
Where else do we find references to fools in the Bible?
What can you do to someone whom you believe is unworthy of God's, and hence your, love?
The neighbor is the man who does the right thing, not the man who believes the right thing and yet does the wrong thing. So?
The neighbor is the one whom you either meet on the street or helps you when you're in a ditch. Anyone, and everyone, is our neighbor.
Is that an inclusive or exclusive statement^
Your neighbor is those that you meet in your daily life. If you exclude others from fellowship, how can they be your neighbor?
It doesn't matter. Even if we don't find Jesus laying out systematically what Christians have to believe, he didn't say many other things that were relevant and that the early Christians would have to work out for themselves. The best argument you have here is an argument from silence.
It does matter if Jesus focused his teachings upon actions and Christians focus their teachings upon theological statements.
Instead of saying a real Christian is someone who believes certain things why don't we accept that a Christian is someone who acts out of love or at least attempts to do so?
It makes it harder to exclude others that way based upon a formula, ie a creed, but, hey, who said life was easy?
Still, I'm afraid you're thinking in black and white (which is ironic since conservatives are often accused of doing that). It's possible for a non-Christian to be more righteous than a Christian without the conclusion being "it doesn't matter what you believe." The conclusion would be "the non-Christian is actually acting more like a Christian than the Christian is!"
Sure.
But you are still defining Christian in terms of theology.
It has not worked here and never will...