antinomianism

The belief that one's religious commitments or faith exempt one from the legal or moral codes of the wider society (hence ‘anti-norms’). Antinomianism has been a characteristic of particular sects throughout the history of Christianity. Most notably, certain radical Protestant sectarians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries extended the Calvinist doctrine of predestination in this way, arguing that those who possessed an inner certainty of their own election were no longer capable of sin and therefore freed from the restrictions of conventional conduct. More recent examples include the Oneida Community, in the nineteenth century, and the Children of God in the present day. Antinomianism is usually associated with unorthodox sexual or marital practices, such as plural marriage (the Oneida Community) or sexual activity outside marriage (the Children of God), the latter being justified on the grounds that it brings others to salvation.