Whole Reason

a book you should check out if you think you really know all there is to know about mercy and grace

another book I’ve been read­ing which I recommend

Thank you Louis, I cer­tainly do NOT know all there is to know about mercy and grace. I do note, how­ever, that you left out TRUTH again — mercy and TRUTH. This is my whole point.

I have heard of that first book, but I’ve shied away from it because of the kitchy, cut­sie word “raga­muf­fin” — also, because I asso­ciate that term with the Chris­t­ian artist Rich Mullins, whom I was not fond of, and who used that same term as one of his album titles. But it may in fact be a good book.

I am not fond of Karen Arm­strong either, and have one of her books. Not only is she a the­o­log­i­cal lib­eral, she is an Islamic apol­o­gist, blinded by mul­ti­cul­tural BS.

How­ever, in the ‘lib­eral the­olo­gian’ vein, I have read and enjoyed (but dis­agreed with in many respects):
– Meet­ing Jesus Again for the First Time: The His­tor­i­cal Jesus and the Heart of Con­tem­po­rary Faith
– Dance of a Fallen Monk: A Jour­ney to Spir­i­tual Enlight­en­ment
– If God Is Love : Redis­cov­er­ing Grace in an Ungra­cious World

Despite your asser­tion, I have not for­got­ten “Truth.” In fact, it is cen­tral to my con­cerns. I hap­pen to believe that mercy and grace are cen­tral to Truth, and that Truth can­not exist with­out them. What you mean by “Truth,” it seems to me, con­sists of legal­is­tic inter­pre­ta­tions of scrip­ture and a demand for ortho­doxy. Cer­tainly, the Truth which will set us free does not con­sist of fol­low­ing Hebraic law and cus­tom. Rather, Truth is a liv­ing thing, and some­thing we see in all great religions.

The title of the book should not put you off. How­ever, with your cast of mind, I doubt you would find con­ge­nial a book which puts Grace cen­ter stage rather than Law. This is illus­trated by your strange equat­ing grace with truth­less­ness. Again, the two are not — indeed, can­not be sep­a­rate. You may con­demn those who make Grace cen­tral in their lives, but you are mak­ing the typ­i­cal Phar­i­saical mis­take: not only did they think that they could some­how be made whole by their own actions, but they felt that this some­how enti­tled them to judge and exclude oth­ers as being unwor­thy and that they could thus some­how con­trol who could approach God. God doesn’t love and accept us because we are wor­thy or sin­less, but despite our lack of worth or sin­ful state. Right­eous­ness has noth­ing to do with it. Jesus didn’t give the keys to Heaven to Caiphas, but to that scruffy world-class bum­bler, Peter the fish­er­man. The Good News is that we are loved and saved from our­selves no mat­ter how unwor­thy. That is the trans­form­ing Truth that can turn around even the most hard­ened heart. Jesus didn’t inter­ro­gate those who came to him about their prac­tices or the state of their souls, he just told them they were for­given. Noth­ing they did (other than ask for it) made the slight­est dif­fer­ence. See the para­ble of the prodi­gal son for His illus­tra­tion of this cen­tral Truth.

I wish you would stop label­ing peo­ple as “lib­eral.” It gets in the way of knowl­edge. I won­der if God thinks of human beings or ideas as lib­eral or con­ser­v­a­tive. If you think He does, then you are merely pro­ject­ing your desires onto Him. More of your “truth” I suppose.

I think that Truth lib­er­ates in many ways — not only from fear and guilt, but from sin and self-deception. My read­ing of the New Tes­ta­ment shows that the law is to make us aware of what evil is so that we may flee from it, as well as our guilt AND God’s mercy — mercy means noth­ing with­out a need for it — that is, impend­ing judge­ment for our guilt, and the real­ity of sin.

» LOUIS: This is illus­trated by your strange equat­ing grace with truthlessness.

I think that these two nec­es­sar­ily exist together, and to sep­a­rate them is an error. Cer­tainly, legal­ists focus only on truth and not on mercy (the Phar­isee I was dis­cussing), but I think you prove my point that any­one who men­tions truth, even if they do men­tion grace (both of which a Chris­t­ian would want to include), the unre­gen­er­ate blanch at the inclu­sion of truth, and only want to focus on ‘grace and mercy’ to the exlu­sion of truth.

I did not equate grace with truth­less­ness, I merely said that the unre­gen­er­ate do not like to men­tion truth and focus on grace because they have yet to be freed from sin through regen­er­a­tion. And your sen­tence men­tioned ONLY grace, so it was quite lit­er­ally miss­ing ‘truth’.

» LOUIS: You may con­demn those who make Grace cen­tral in their lives,

Again, only those who do so by exclud­ing truth as rel­e­vant and convicting.

» LOUIS: not only did they think that they could some­how be made whole by their own actions, but they felt that this some­how enti­tled them to judge and exclude oth­ers as being unwor­thy and that they could thus some­how con­trol who could approach God.

Louis, you are mak­ing my point per­fectly. While I men­tion both truth and grace, you fail to dis­cern the dif­fer­ence between this approach and the judg­men­tal Phar­i­saical ‘truth only’ approach. As I said, you act like the unre­gen­er­ate per­son I was describ­ing — unable to tell the dif­fer­ence, because any men­tion of truth or guilt is seen as evi­dence of Phariseeism.

» LOUIS: The Good News is that we are loved and saved from our­selves no mat­ter how unworthy.

I entirely agree. I have never said oth­er­wise. What I have said, how­ever, is that ‘any­one who names the name of Christ should for­sake sin.’ Not for right­eous­ness sake, but merely because that is their regen­er­ate nature. But those who are NOT born again lack the will, desire, and abil­ity to hate sin.

Now, we all strug­gle while here in these bod­ies, as even Paul the Apos­tle admit­ted. I am not talk­ing about liv­ing sin­lessly or per­fectly. But I am talk­ing about desir­ing to appro­pri­ate truth and for­sake sin, the hall­marks of the regen­er­ate Christian.

» LOUIS: See the para­ble of the prodi­gal son for His illus­tra­tion of this cen­tral Truth.

That is a great story, and the older brother is the typ­i­cal Phar­isee. How­ever, with­out ‘truth,’ the story of the sin­ful­ness of the Prodigal’s life and his return to his father (leav­ing the ‘sin’ of the world), the story makes no sense.

Unre­gen­er­ate ‘Chris­tians’ jus­tify liv­ing in the pig­pen while claim­ing grace. The Prodi­gal repented and came with pen­i­tence and acknowl­edge­ment of his guilt.

Sure, the father didn’t make him jump through hoops. And nei­ther does God. But those who claim they are Chris­tians while jus­ti­fy­ing their con­sis­tent return to the pig sty are decieved, and to call those of us who call them back to the Father through for­sak­ing sin and hid­ing in his grace (not just hid­ing in grace and jus­ti­fy­ing remain­ing in sin) Phar­isees are giv­ing evi­dence of the coun­ter­feit faith they have.

Of course, I can not really tell who is really saved and strug­gling v. who is a false Chris­t­ian, but I can obey and teach the truth about what sin is, and what faith is, and how grace and truth work together. And by teach­ing these things, the indi­vid­ual who hears them can judge HIMSELF rightly. And that’s the point.

I has­ten to add that if such a per­son, whether unre­gen­er­ate or strug­gling, wants to become a church leader, I may dis­qual­ify him if he is not ‘the hus­band of one wife, not given to much wine,’ etc.

» LOUIS: I wish you would stop label­ing peo­ple as “lib­eral.” It gets in the way of knowledge.

Well, I think labels are nec­es­sary when dis­cussing sys­tems of think­ing (var­i­ous ide­olo­gies) and those that hold them. I admit, no ‘group of peo­ple’ is mono­lithic, but cer­tain ideas do log­i­cally and prac­ti­cally hang together. Also, such terms as ‘lib­eral the­olo­gians’ or ‘con­ser­v­a­tive the­olo­gians’ have a com­monly under­stood meaning.

While such gen­er­al­iza­tions may be too broad for the com­fort of some, they are a nec­es­sary evil and use­ful in explain­ing dif­fer­ences of ide­ol­ogy. I’m not sure what you would have me do instead.

Glad you are back, strange to say. We get a decent num­ber of vis­i­tors, but few com­menters. I’ve taken to com­ment­ing on athe­ist blogs — but I swear, I’m try­ing not to troll ;)

I don’t have much to say, other than I’m not much sur­prised at your response. I wish you would grant me the sin­cer­ity and pre­ci­sion of my words rather than imply­ing I am one of the “unre­gen­er­ate” and thus inca­pable of ded­i­cat­ing myself to Truth. I think we dif­fer in our approach to Truth, that’s all. While you seem to see it as a set of facts or rules listed in the Bible or the myth­i­cal “nat­ural law” (cor­rect me if I’m wrong), I tend to view it as a liv­ing and sacred entity: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” As such, it is some­thing with which we have a rela­tion­ship, a liv­ing pres­ence in our lives beyond legal­is­tic or the­o­log­i­cal con­cerns. It is an exis­ten­tial act we com­mit. Thus, it has the power to trans­form our lives beyond that of merely assent­ing to a list of rules or fol­low­ing the law.

I also fail to con­nect with your addic­tion to such labels as “unre­gen­er­ate” or “regen­er­ate.” I sup­pose these are terms com­mon to evan­gel­i­cal cir­cles but they leave me cold. I see noth­ing of your approach in Jesus’ actions — the oppo­site in fact. Besides, if you think we can attain moral purity or a sin­less life through our own actions and beliefs, I fear you are seri­ously delud­ing your­self (even St. Paul admit­ted this was impos­si­ble). Can you add an inch to your stature through think­ing? (cf, Luther’s sola fide)

If I’m back, it’s to com­ment upon spir­i­tual mat­ters, as I find your polit­i­cal stance and com­men­tary uncon­ge­nial in the extreme. I’m also here, as part of my Ninth Step, to express regret for the intem­per­ate lan­guage I used in the past. I now see it as a point­less exer­cise in resent­ment and fear, merely strik­ing at you rather than con­vinc­ing you. I’m sorry. I will try to treat you with the respect I wish you would extend me.