It is a subject for a book. But here's an eye-opening quote, and some brief thoughts:
Oswald Chambers:
As long as our eyes are focused on our own personal holiness, we will never even get close to the full reality of redemption. Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God. “Don’t ask me to be confronted with the strong reality of redemption on behalf of the filth of human life surrounding me today; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes.” To talk that way is a sign that the reality of the gospel of God has not begun to touch me. There is no reckless abandon to God in that. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul was not conscious of himself. He was recklessly abandoned, totally surrendered, and separated by God for one purpose— to proclaim the gospel of God (see Romans 9:3).
Selah.
Toxic Faith: The blending of elements of the Gospel with human tradition and focus on self-holiness. Toxic faith blends the work of Christ with traditions or sub-cultures of human making, controlling and manipulating disciples using the language of faith. Toxic faith traps the psyche and life of the follower in bondage, even as it claims to believe in the freedom of Christ. Toxic faith often works in pseudo-cult fashion, using the threat [spoken or implied] of dis-fellowshiping, disfavor, silence, and outright rejection to keep the follower "in line." It uses the language of truth but it does not allow full appeal to the Truth; nor does it allow accountability to Truth outside its narrow definition -- not even appeal to Scripture. Toxic faith makes holiness and group life the focus, to the exclusion of the Gospel, and outright rejection of its freedom: to exercise freedom is to be excised from the group and rejected from conversation and communion. Toxic faith binds the persons that Christ came to free, crippling them spiritually and emotionally.
Selah.
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