Posts tagged "Sanctification"
Grace in Addiction: Stanley Runs Into Barbed Wire
Addiction / Theology

Grace in Addiction: Stanley Runs Into Barbed Wire

by Mockingbird on Mar 20, 2013 • No Comments

Continuing with our series of previews of our recent publication Grace in Addiction: The Good News of Alcoholics Anonymous for Everybody, here’s a section from the chapter having to do with Step 7, i.e. “Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.”

An important part of parenting comes when the parent makes a mistake. Perhaps tempers flare in a regrettable way. Or maybe a crucial decision turns out to have been a misstep. Maybe the parents move their child into a new school that proves to be a poor match, and the child has to switch back later. God’s grace is…

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Short Story Wednesdays: “The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller” by Gustave Flaubert
Books / Theology

Short Story Wednesdays: “The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller” by Gustave Flaubert

by WB on Feb 6, 2013 • 1 Comment

This week, we get to hear all about Christianity, morality, and sanctification, from the ever-insightful Gustave Flaubert, in his fantastic story about learning to hunt as an up-and-coming medieval prince. After a series of twists, we meet Jesus Christ in a riverside hovel. Read along here.

Only the saint knows sin.

-W.P. DuBose

A pretentious student once asked Flannery O’Connor whether she had been influenced at all by Flaubert. She responded (once imagines in her thickest Southern drawl), “FLOW-BARE? Never heard of him.” Despite the sarcasm, his writing style, stance on faith, and meditations on how the grace of God changes someone were…

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Grace in Addiction: Getting Worse Is Getting Better?
Addiction / Prayer / Psychology / Religion

Grace in Addiction: Getting Worse Is Getting Better?

by Mockingbird on Jan 16, 2013 • 4 Comments

Continuing with our series of previews of our recent publication Grace in Addiction: The Good News of Alcoholics Anonymous for Everybody, we move to a section from the chapter having to do with Step 7, i.e. “Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.”

“Although people do sometimes have a sense of peace with God… nevertheless, in a given situation it is not so much peace with God that is the true mark of the Holy Spirit at work, but birth pangs.” -Christoph Blumhardt

Another image of God’s work in a person’s life comes from John’s Gospel: “The wind blows wherever it…

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The Art of Getting Used to Justification
Theology

The Art of Getting Used to Justification

by David Zahl on Nov 29, 2012 • 5 Comments

Perusing our archives the other day, I was surprised to discover that we’ve never quoted from Gerhard Forde’s crystal clear, absolute must-read essay on sanctification from the somewhat lazily titled Five Views of Sanctification. Well, today is the day we rectify that oversight:

Sanctification, if it is to spoken of as something other than justification, is perhaps best defined as the art of getting used to the unconditional justification wrought by the grace of God for Jesus’ sake. It is what happens when we are grasped by the fact that God alone justifies. Is is being made holy, and as such,…

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George Herbert – Easter Wings 1
Poetry / Theology

George Herbert – Easter Wings 1

by WB on Oct 23, 2012 • 1 Comment

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store
      Though foolishly he lost the same,
           Decaying more and more,
                   Till he became
                       Most poor:
                       With thee
                    O let me rise
            As larks, harmoniously,
      And sing this day thy victories
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.
 

In this stunning poem, Herbert…

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“Getting Better Doesn’t Matter?” Steve Brown, Billy Graham, and God’s Silent Sanctification
Books / Church / Theology

“Getting Better Doesn’t Matter?” Steve Brown, Billy Graham, and God’s Silent Sanctification

by Ethan Richardson on Oct 23, 2012 • 11 Comments

Approaching one of the stickiest wickets in American Christendom, Steve Brown, with candid experience and humor, brings us back to the inner-pharisee that is almost always conjured in talk about sanctification. I may not be so prone as Steve Brown to say that our neighbor’s baggage is as shocking as he lets on, only because we so often have the same baggage, but he is only using that as a device to point to the bigger (or deeper) picture: that when we get into the scorekeeping game, it inherently becomes a cover-up game. He then describes a sanctification that happens…

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Hidden Holiness: Marion’s Invisible Saint
Identity / Philosophy / Testimony / Theology

Hidden Holiness: Marion’s Invisible Saint

by WB on May 30, 2012 • 1 Comment

From a recently published essay collection on Saints, a zinger of a quote from French Catholic theologian Jean-Luc Marion’s “Invisibility of the Saint” explores the contradictions inherent in claiming to possess or even recognize holiness:

Yet it is plain to see that, unlike in the matters of heroism or intelligence, [the conditions for recognizing these traits] cannot be satisfied in the case of holiness.  There are three reasons for this. First, no one can claim to define the concept (or the meaning) of holiness without running the risk of the most obvious of idolatries. Indeed, when a group or a faction declares someone…

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Forde Friday: In Defense of Daily Personal Drownings
Death / Religion / Theology

Forde Friday: In Defense of Daily Personal Drownings

by Matt Johnson on Apr 20, 2012 • 1 Comment

Being hung up on personal spiritual progress is a problem. Why? Because it’s an indication that somehow, we are holding on to/out for some type of self-salvation project that needs to be drowned in order that we might be raised to new life. Says Forde on page 51 of Justification by Faith–A Matter Of Death And Life:

The “progress” of the Christian therefore, is the progress of one who has constantly to get used to the fact that we are justified totally by faith, constantly has somehow to “recover,” so to speak, from that death blow to pride and presumption–or better,…

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Forde Friday: Spiritual Progress = “Shut Up And Listen”!
Books / Law / Theology

Forde Friday: Spiritual Progress = “Shut Up And Listen”!

by Matt Johnson on Mar 30, 2012 • 6 Comments

Here’s another zinger about our misguided ideas of spiritual progress from our favorite late Lutheran Theologian, Gerhard Forde. For those that tend to get sucked into fruitless spiritual introspection (ahem, that would be me), let this be salve to your soul. This quote is from page 50 of Justification: A Matter of Death and Life.

We see that the law simply cannot bring into being what it commands… The law says, ‘Thou shalt love!’ It is right; it is ‘holy, true, good’. Yet it can’t bring about what it demands. It might impel toward the works of the law, the motions…

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Why the NBA Playoffs Are Better (Though Less Theologically Profound) Than March Madness
Sports / Theology

Why the NBA Playoffs Are Better (Though Less Theologically Profound) Than March Madness

by Nick Lannon on Mar 14, 2012 • 1 Comment

There was a time when I was just like you. I would have read the headline of this post and been outraged. “But,” I’d sputter, “No one plays defense in the NBA!” “College kids care more and try harder!” (Argument #1) “Anyone can win the NCAA Tournament; that’s the beauty of it!” (Argument #2) I submit to you, though, that people who currently use these retorts (at least #1) probably haven’t watched the NBA game in a while.

With diffused talent (there are 345 Division 1 basketball programs spread across 32 conferences, whereas there are only 30 total NBA teams), and…

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It’s Gonna Last You for the Rest of Your Life: Sanctification According to Groundhog Day
Film / Humor / Relationships / Suffering / Theology

It’s Gonna Last You for the Rest of Your Life: Sanctification According to Groundhog Day

by Matt Schneider on Feb 2, 2012 • 5 Comments

That’s right, woodchuck chuckers. It’s Groundhog Day! I have a tradition of watching Groundhog Day every year around February 2. Which is convenient, since television stations tend to play the film this time of year. Repeated viewings are also a fitting homage, given the movie’s plot, which has weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) reliving Groundhog Day over and over and over again for what seems like eternity. Each time I watch Groundhog Day I discover new things, and this year, while keeping an eye on what it might say about human nature, the theme of sanctification (that is, the process of becoming…

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Reflections on a Midwestern Church
Church / Law / Religion / Theology

Reflections on a Midwestern Church

by Zach Williams on Oct 6, 2011 • 13 Comments

It meets in a old, charming church building, not an office park or a bar or a towering arena in the suburbs. Red bricks overshadowing gothic archways suggest a Methodist or Baptist past. From the lunch hall opposite the sanctuary one can almost smell the aroma of a thousand pots of coffee brewed and numerous potluck dishes served through the decades.

Don Shall

Updating has occurred. It is odd to see an espresso bar and metallic trimmings fill the foyer alongside the almond staircase and the understated clover windows of the narthex. Nonetheless, the combination puts everyone at ease, the young…

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Spiritual Entropy, or: The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Fallacy of Self-Help Christianity
Religion / Science / Theology

Spiritual Entropy, or: The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Fallacy of Self-Help Christianity

by Mockingbird on Aug 9, 2011 • 1 Comment

We couldn’t be more excited to have another guest post from Michael Belote of Reboot Christianity. This time, he talks about “spiritual entropy” – the idea that our lives tend to become less organized or “together” as time goes on:

Scientists have a crucial insight about the world when they talk about entropy, that is, a system’s tendency to become more disorganized over time. It certainly applies to our inner lives. To explain what I mean, I have to start with a little science lesson.

One of the most important subjects to an engineer is that of thermodynamics – the study of…

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Why My Back Door Still Isn’t Fixed, or: Project Management and the Human Condition
Everyday / Religion / Theology

Why My Back Door Still Isn’t Fixed, or: Project Management and the Human Condition

by Mockingbird on Jul 22, 2011 • No Comments

For those of us wondering why our back door isn’t fixed, ex-project manager and Mockingbird friend Michael Belote of Reboot Christianity offers a reflection on project management and the spiritual condition:

When I was going for my graduate degree in engineering, one of the things we studied was project management. Afterwards, I served as a project engineer for my first job. Both in the classroom and later in my job, we found the same thing to be true: you must plan for failure in any human endeavor.

In project management, we say that every project must balance Quality, Cost, and Schedule. You…

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Jupiter, Failed Stars and the Spiritual Condition
Science / Theology

Jupiter, Failed Stars and the Spiritual Condition

by Mockingbird on Jul 17, 2011 • 2 Comments

We’re excited to present a little piece of interstellar theology from someone who actually knows something about it, Michael Belote of the excellent Reboot Christianity blog:

Earlier today, my wife mentioned hearing that Jupiter was a “failed” star. She asked me, perhaps unwisely, to elaborate. It’s actually a pretty interesting point, one which I think has a spiritual dimension that I will go into shortly. But you may have to sit through a little bit of science before I draw the spiritual connection.

So the existing theory about how stars form is as follows: in certain parts of the universe there are…

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