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Ethics & Morality
Benefits of going to Church
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<blockquote data-quote="ViaCrucis" data-source="post: 77124050" data-attributes="member: 293637"><p>I think, on this, you've lost me. I understand what you're saying, but I quite strongly disagree with the idea of someone reaching such a "place of human personal development". I wouldn't call that spiritual, but soulish. I'd view it as an example of prelest and a spiritual woundedness that itself needs mending. That I should think myself having ascended to a higher spiritual perspective, I have in fact regressed away from grace.</p><p></p><p>One of the ancient desert fathers, Sisoes the Great reportedly on his death bed was seen by the brothers at the monastery speaking to invisible persons, when they asked him who he was speaking to, he responded that he was asking the angels who had come to take him to give him more time so he could continue to repent. The brothers told him that he had lived a virtuous life and he had nothing left to repent of, to which Sisoes is reported to have said, "Truly, I do not know if I have even begun to repent.".</p><p></p><p>I think Sisoes' words are filled with profound truth worthy of contemplation. The Christian life cannot be a life lived beyond the cross, but inhabits this place at the cross. It kneels before the cross, at the foot of the cross, and one can only confess to being a beggar in need to receive what is found only here at the cross.</p><p></p><p>One of the things I have frequently been critical of with much of contemporary Christian religion, especially here in the United States, is that it frequently acts and behaves as a "beyond the cross" religion. The cross is seen as where the Christian life begins, but one eventually progresses beyond it. What I observe is much of the "conservative Evangelical" world is "a form of religion, but denying the power thereof" as Paul called it. Because of rampant preaching of theologies of glory, because there is an absence of the cross, because, I think, there has been a failure to preach repentance. Because "repentance" has been perverted and distorted to become "what that other person needs to do", rather than how I ought to live. It is, in essence, what Pastor Bonhoeffer warned of when he spoke of cheap grace. Moralism has replaced repentance. Moralism has replaced the preaching of Law, and moralism has replaced the preaching of the Gospel.</p><p></p><p>The solution, however, isn't found in the cultural opposites of modern conservative Evangelicalism. The answer to the spiritual poverty of the Religious Right isn't found in, for lack of a better terminology, religious progressivism. So, as I currently see things, I can look to the so-called conservative churches and the so-called liberal churches and I don't know that there's a big difference--speaking in broad strokes rather than looking at specific cases. Because I think in both cases there is a treatment of the cross as behind, an idea of maturing beyond the cross. And it's not just on the subject of repentance, it's in the ways that the cross is lost sight of. Without beholding the cross right in front of us, we are ultimately turning toward our own ambition, our own power, our own structures of spirituality--and that's just spiritual suicide. </p><p></p><p>Because the reality of ourselves is that we are <em>incurvatus in se</em>, human beings turned inward onto ourselves. The cross at once reminds us of the severity of our own sin and reveals to us the grace by which we are forgiven and healed of sin and its terrible wounds. It is not that I was once forgiven, but that I am forgiven. It is not that I once was a sinner, but that I am a sinner.</p><p></p><p>The cross is uncomfortable. The cross is scandalous. The cross isn't elegant or polite. It is shameful, it is foolishness, it is a stumbling block. But there is no higher, no greater, no more sublime reality than the Jewish Carpenter who was hung from that wooden edifice of death.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Perhaps I will seem naive in saying it. But I can't help but look and see the world around me and realize that things today aren't really all that different than five hundred years ago. Those 16th century answers seem to be as meaningful as they ever have been; and I can't help but think that's because those 16th century answers are also 1st century answers, and ultimately every-century answers. Because the cross stands at the center of time and space, it is the fixed point around which everything is ultimately oriented. Sin and death, love and forgiveness, Law and Gospel.</p><p></p><p>-CryptoLutheran</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ViaCrucis, post: 77124050, member: 293637"] I think, on this, you've lost me. I understand what you're saying, but I quite strongly disagree with the idea of someone reaching such a "place of human personal development". I wouldn't call that spiritual, but soulish. I'd view it as an example of prelest and a spiritual woundedness that itself needs mending. That I should think myself having ascended to a higher spiritual perspective, I have in fact regressed away from grace. One of the ancient desert fathers, Sisoes the Great reportedly on his death bed was seen by the brothers at the monastery speaking to invisible persons, when they asked him who he was speaking to, he responded that he was asking the angels who had come to take him to give him more time so he could continue to repent. The brothers told him that he had lived a virtuous life and he had nothing left to repent of, to which Sisoes is reported to have said, "Truly, I do not know if I have even begun to repent.". I think Sisoes' words are filled with profound truth worthy of contemplation. The Christian life cannot be a life lived beyond the cross, but inhabits this place at the cross. It kneels before the cross, at the foot of the cross, and one can only confess to being a beggar in need to receive what is found only here at the cross. One of the things I have frequently been critical of with much of contemporary Christian religion, especially here in the United States, is that it frequently acts and behaves as a "beyond the cross" religion. The cross is seen as where the Christian life begins, but one eventually progresses beyond it. What I observe is much of the "conservative Evangelical" world is "a form of religion, but denying the power thereof" as Paul called it. Because of rampant preaching of theologies of glory, because there is an absence of the cross, because, I think, there has been a failure to preach repentance. Because "repentance" has been perverted and distorted to become "what that other person needs to do", rather than how I ought to live. It is, in essence, what Pastor Bonhoeffer warned of when he spoke of cheap grace. Moralism has replaced repentance. Moralism has replaced the preaching of Law, and moralism has replaced the preaching of the Gospel. The solution, however, isn't found in the cultural opposites of modern conservative Evangelicalism. The answer to the spiritual poverty of the Religious Right isn't found in, for lack of a better terminology, religious progressivism. So, as I currently see things, I can look to the so-called conservative churches and the so-called liberal churches and I don't know that there's a big difference--speaking in broad strokes rather than looking at specific cases. Because I think in both cases there is a treatment of the cross as behind, an idea of maturing beyond the cross. And it's not just on the subject of repentance, it's in the ways that the cross is lost sight of. Without beholding the cross right in front of us, we are ultimately turning toward our own ambition, our own power, our own structures of spirituality--and that's just spiritual suicide. Because the reality of ourselves is that we are [I]incurvatus in se[/I], human beings turned inward onto ourselves. The cross at once reminds us of the severity of our own sin and reveals to us the grace by which we are forgiven and healed of sin and its terrible wounds. It is not that I was once forgiven, but that I am forgiven. It is not that I once was a sinner, but that I am a sinner. The cross is uncomfortable. The cross is scandalous. The cross isn't elegant or polite. It is shameful, it is foolishness, it is a stumbling block. But there is no higher, no greater, no more sublime reality than the Jewish Carpenter who was hung from that wooden edifice of death. Perhaps I will seem naive in saying it. But I can't help but look and see the world around me and realize that things today aren't really all that different than five hundred years ago. Those 16th century answers seem to be as meaningful as they ever have been; and I can't help but think that's because those 16th century answers are also 1st century answers, and ultimately every-century answers. Because the cross stands at the center of time and space, it is the fixed point around which everything is ultimately oriented. Sin and death, love and forgiveness, Law and Gospel. -CryptoLutheran [/QUOTE]
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