Hey there. It is Friday. I have posted a couple of articles in the forum. Take a gander if you are interested. There is one about the current candidate for the Supreme Court (The "higest" court?! What an unkind name!), and there is another about the patriot act.
And here is a quotation for you to ponder today.
Worse Than No ChristianityIt's a pretty challenging word. Arnold has read a lot of Bonhoeffer t'would seem.
J. Heinrich ArnoldDiscipleship means complete dedication. It demands everything - the whole heart, the whole mind, and the whole of life, including one's time, energy, and property - for the cause of love. Half-hearted Christianity is worse than no Christianity.
I like this thinking and am troubled by it at the same time. You see, there is this thing called a Christian Journey. "You must walk that lonesome valley..." Cliff talks about theosis. At our baptisms we are not purified, given grace to sin no more. Nope. It don't work that way. So, discipleship is the process of becomming Christian.
Now, Arnold would most likely agree with me. And he is probably bent out of shape about "notional" Christians...people who talk the talk but have no interest in walking the walk. They show up on Sunday because they do not know what else to do with that morning of the week. But these people, too, are on a journey. They may be learning to take their faith, their baptismal vows, seriously. Who can say?
I respect Arnold's ire. I do. But I shy away at the same time.
I'm with you on the feelings on this one. Personally, I know it took me a long time to "get it," (and I'm still getting it). What if someone had told me I wasn't worthy to be a Christian sometime before then?
OTOH, it seems to me that when entire churches are made up of members who think Christianity is little more than a club, we're in trouble.
OTOH, (and here I channel Tim Sedgwick's famous third hand), aren't we also called to trust that God is working in secret ways that we can't see?
Don't we trust that people who sit week after week in pews, and listen to sermons, and receive the grace of Eucharist, aren't being converted by something more powerful than us?
And yet aren't there times to challenge a congregation's halfhearted Christianity?
Emily commented, "...and here I channel Tim Sedgwick's famous third hand..."
Wow, did we get lucky with him, or what? I don't think a week goes by in which I don't consciously practice moral theology after habits learned in his class. "Weighing the goods" (with appropriate hand gestures of weighing the apples and oranges of pathos) etc.
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