A marvelous little quote from the good Reverend Capon’s 1996 book, The Romance of the Word: One Man’s Love Affair with Theology, p 11:
‘Grace is wildly irreligious stuff. It’s more than enough to get God kicked out of the God union that the theologians have formed to keep him on his divine toes so he won’t let the riffraff off scot-free. Sensible people, of course, should need only about thirty seconds of careful thought to realize that getting off scot-free is the only way any of us is going to get off at all. But if all we can think of is God as the Eternal Bookkeeper putting down black marks against sinners–or God as the Celestial Mother-in-Law giving a crystal vase as a present and then inspecting it for chips every time she comes for a visit…well, any serious doctrine of grace is going to scare the rockers right off our little theological hobbyhorses.’
















6 comments
Howard Nowlan says:
Jul 19, 2011
Wonderful!!
honeybee says:
Jul 19, 2011
Forget Mother-in-law; that’s something my own mother would do!
Thanks for this life-giving quote. Capon hangs the moon!
John Zahl says:
Jul 19, 2011
Great quote! Love the vase-inspecting mother-in-law analogy.
Heather says:
Jul 19, 2011
This is a keeper. Will read this one again and again!
D. R. Demsyn says:
Jul 19, 2011
This sure is something to start every day with…
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“Grace is wildly irreligious stuff.” Hallelujah! | Laughing Water says:
Sep 30, 2012
[...] to God) but also horizontally (in relation to others). That blog is also where I recently saw a quote by Robert Farrar Capon from The Romance of the Word: One Man’s Love Affair with Theology, [...]