Whatever happened to grace?

Great Debates
1

I’ve just started reading a book called What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Phillip Yancey a well-known christian author and he has made some very interesting assertions. He points out that one of the most basic tenets of Jesus’ ministry and teaching was to offer grace to the world. He also notes that those most drawn to Jesus during his lifetime are the same kinds of people who are most repelled by the modern church(i.e. the destitute, criminals, prostitutes, etc…) and draws the conclusion that this is because we have forgotton the message of grace and how to offer it.

Having said that, I have a couple of questions:
1)What does grace mean to you? (in the context above. this is not about praying before you eat.)
2)What does grace look like, practically speaking?
3)What’s your take on Yancey’s ideas?

Granted I’ve only read the first three chapters and I’ve managed to paraphrase 40+ pages into a few sentences, but I think I’ve captured the general idea. I guess the real question is, do you think the church has forgotton the message of grace and would christianity and christians in general be more palatable/less repugnant if we could remember what grace is and how to give it? Would people be willing/able to receive it? Do we as a society know how to accept a freely given, no-strings-attached gift any more?

Ok, I think that’s enough for y’all to think about right now. Thanks.

2

I like Yancey & I’ve read the book. I do object to his definition- Grace means there’s nothing you can do that will make God love you any more or any less; BUT I couldn’t pinpoint why until I read an essay by, I think, Rabbi Shumley Boteach (the Kosher Sex rabbi)- on the need for us to know God has both unconditional love AND conditional love; what he called Mother Love & Father Love, unconditional caring but conditional approval.

Btw, I wonder how long it will take before Yancey comes out as at least a Hopeful Universal Salvationist.

And no, I didn’t actually address any of your points L

3

Ditto

I think that the problem occurs a little further down the Christian assembly line - once we have recieved grace, a response is expected. And this response is expected to “repent” (turn around) and to “go, and sin no more”. Grace is a free gift, given to all who ask for it, however some churches seem to be preaching a gospel where the repenting and the sinning-no-more need to happen first…

Grim

4

As a practicing Christian I often wish the church could act a little more like Christ.

I’m no fundie and I’m probably pretty liberal from the church’s point of view, but that said I’m pretty tired of the finger pointing and condemning of whole groups of people. If Jesus saw fit to be friends with prostitutes, I wonder how the church justifies ostracizing a portion of the population based on things like sexual orientation.

God will judge in the end. We don’t need to, life’s too short.

5

I just realized that what I wrote could be taken the wrong way.

I didn’t mean for that to imply that God will condemn people based on sexual orientation at their death. I meant that we don’t really the will of God and shouldn’t assume anything based on our own prejudices.

Does that make sense?

6

Not this bit: “I meant that we don’t really the will of God …” :slight_smile:

Grim

7

zoid, let’s remember that while JC befriended prostitutes, He didn’t OK their practices AND the forbidding of acting on certain sexual orientations originated in the Torah He upheld and was reaffirmed by His successors.

8

to actually respond to the OP Q’s- (it’s about time I did that)-

  1. Grace to me personally means that God/Jesus are gonna stay with me & hold on to me in everything, maybe with the exception of me totally turning against Them; that while They may need to give me spiritual whuppin’s in this life or the next- my sins will be judged on the basis of what effects they had on others rather than me undergoing the Death Penalty of Hell; that no matter how bad situations get around me, God/Jesus will eventually turn them to Their good purpose.

  2. Mother Theresa, Charles Colson’s Prison Fellowship, Habitat for Humanity are some of the public examples.

  3. Yancey gets a WEE bit more touchy-feely than I would. Like I said, I believe there is a conditional element to Divine Love as well as an unconditional. Maybe we can call the unconditional element Love (with the result being Grace) and the conditional one Approval (with the result being Blessing).

Since Zoid brought up the sexual orientation issue, I’ll mention that Yancey does deal with that in his section on his friendship with Mel White, the evangelical Christian “ghostwriter” who came out as gay- that Yancey remained friends with him when many other C’tian “friends” were totally abandoning Mel but that Yancey could not give approval of Mel’s decision to leave his wife & children & live out his gayness. I would not doubt if Y did the same as I have done (and still do) when asked to do so by gay friends- pray & study the Bible to see if there is some way the Church has historically misinterpreted things (so far, with the conclusion that No, the Church seems to have correctly interpreted the Bible as forbidding gay sex).

It’s kinda telling that a discussion of Divine Grace & the Church devolves into debating Christian attitudes towards homosexuality, but since that is the one big issue in which conservative Christian & liberal Christian attitutes clash (or I might say Bible-centered & secular-centered attitudes clash), it’s also a natural place for the discussion to go. There is little real debate among most Christians & others over proper attitudes towards racial or class or male-female differences; some debate over proper attitudes towards political-ideological differences; lots of debate over proper attitudes towards sexual behavior differences. Thus- that is the area where we need to define what Grace means & what it requires of us. To me, the answer is neither blanket condemnation or blanket approval, but a long-suffering, compassionate disagreement with the behavior while affirming the person as much as possible.

(To be continued…)

9

El Marko asks-

do you think the church has forgotton the message of grace

No, but we always need to be reminded & challenged to explore the implications of grace.

and would christianity and christians in general be more palatable/less repugnant if we could remember what grace is and how to give it?
Would people be willing/able to receive it?

Somewhat, yes. We could be a lot nicer & tone down the volume & not make a Federal case out of everything. However, we have to stay true to what we believe God requires of us & some people are just not going to like what God requires, no matter how graciously it’s put forth. However, we Christians often do provoke a lot of unnecessary polarization, especially those of us who uphold Jesus as the Way to God and monogamous straight marital commitment.
Do we as a society know how to accept a freely given, no-strings-attached gift any more?

Not really, but I don’t think that is the definition of Biblical Grace. Jesus did not offer anything to anybody with no strings attached- heck, He practically guaranteed there would be a Cross attached L
I asked in my first post here when & if Yancey would ever reveal himself to be a Hopeful Universalist. That is where I think traditional Christianity has really betrayed the concept of Grace- with the teaching of Eternal Torment in Hell for those outside of Christian faith (ofttimes, not just those who reject Christian faith but are not exposed to it). This has been modified with some theories- that Hell is actually more Eternal Exile for those who willfully reject God/Jesus than it is Torment, or that Hell is just reward/punishment for ones deeds followed by eventual eternal annihilation for those who reject, or (most rarely given- perhaps as it’s more an Eastern Orthodox model) that Hell is Eternal Alienation from God/Jesus’s Love and may actually be located in the glories of Heaven. However, none of these theories have countered the popular misconception of an Eternal Burning Torture Chamber. Also, they don’t answer the challenge that if God is Eternal & Loving & Gracious, why is it His Justice against Sin that is Eternal and not His Gracious Love for those who resist Him?

I don’t pretend to have a complete solution yet- my closest at the moment is that God/Jesus is Eternal Gracious Love & Justice, that as long as there is hope for a soul to respond, God’s Grace is open to that soul, but if a soul could ever make itself hopelessly hardened against God, that soul will by God’s mercy be allowed to fizzle out of existence.

Then again, it may be they are writhing forever in God’s Rejected Love in the slight chance that in some moment of clarity, they will respond- perhaps after six million normal human lifetimes of agonizingly rejecting God/Jesus, Adolph Hitler will realize that He Who chose the Jews as His People and Incarnated as King of the Jews only wants his ultimate Good, & he will surrender & embrace the God of the Jews as well as the Jews themselves.

10

Well I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. If you didn’t like that small bit I said, I got a whole bunch more I’m sure you’d REALY have issues with. :smiley:

No disrespect intended - like I said we just don’t agree.

But I do need to say this…
I really don’t like the implication that the opposite of “Bible Centered” is “Secular Centered”. There are many religions in the world which do not recognize the bible as the word of God, and to refer to them as secular because you don’t agree with them is in my opinion insulting.

11

1)What does grace mean to you? (in the context above. this is not about praying before you eat.)

Grace IMO is to receive favour and not deserve it. For instance, a police man pulled me over for going 70KM in a 50 zone (actually, I went back and checked, it was a 60 zone) and gave me a warning. I did break the law, and did deserve a ticket, and he let me know it, but then let me off. It was his goodness than made me realize how silly speeding is. For instance, if someone goes faster than you they’re maniacs, and if they go slower than you they’re crazy. So that to me was grace.

2)What does grace look like, practically speaking? Like an older policeman about to retire.

3)What’s your take on Yancey’s ideas? I personally think grace is overused in the ‘christian’ church. Jesus’ message was 'Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand" and a lot of grace teaching, which was popular after the discipleship movement, went off. If I didn’t know I broke the law by speeding, the officers warning would have been silly to me, and I wouldn’t have seen it as grace. When it’s quoted that Jesus spent time with sinners, first off that’s taken a bit out of context, but, as Jesus said, it’s the sick that need a doctor, so He went where they knew they were sick. But Jesus never said 'Go, and continue in your ways." it was 'Go, and sin no more." The Bible is clear that those who use God’s grace as an occasion to sin. Jude 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. And: Hebrews 10:29 “Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (NKJV) How did he insult the Spirit of grace? Hebrews 10:26 “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,” (KJV)

So is the judgmental attitude what keeps people away? Possibly. The story of the lighthouse that became a social club comes to mind, although I don’t know where to find it. But to say we’re under grace don’t judge my sin is incorrect. Personally, I think there are a lot of people who are in church who have never repented, therefore they don’t realize how bad they were, or how much they’ve been forgiven, so they don’t extend the grace to others.

12

Praying before you eat.

D’OH! :smack:

13

zoid- sorry about the Bible/secular confusion, I was just referring to Christian believers. The conservative C’tian believer tends to interpret society (the secular realm) in light of the Bible, while the liberal C’tian believer tends to interpret the Bible in the light of society.

Actually, I think the other issues you hint of would be more interesting to discuss than just hammering on the gay thing L

14

Your probably right but I was trying to use it as a topic in refrence to the OP and not get too far off course.

Maybe I’ll p[en a new thread on the other issues pone of these days. When I do I’ll be sure to send you an e-mail, I’d be interesed to hear your views.