Renounciation

[chrismon]

As Christians we often make many claims and pronounciations regarding what we believe and why we believe it. However, there is also a lot of precedence in the historical life of the Church for renouncing various things. For example, in baptism, many liturgies "[SIZE=-1]renounce Satan and all his works". Hopefully such a renounciation is obvious to us.

My question, to start conversation, is, what else ought we be reounouncing as Christians? What are the things in our world today which call us away from Christ? What claims do the powers and principalities of this world try to put on us which me must whole-heartedly renounce? Now we may not practice this renounciation with our mouths. Most often it is done in our very lives.

So think of some examples. I'll wait a bit to give some of my own. Think hard before you post. Think of the things in the world around you that say "You don't belong to God, you belong to me!" If you are honest with yourself about your environment, you'll be surprised, perhaps even frightened at the answers you come up with when you realize how many things you love dearly are actually things which conflict with Jesus' claim on you.
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[Agape_]

I say to you that renounciation is not meant for the world but for the heart of every christian. When you say what things in the world should we renounce also you are ignoring the fact that everything in the world is created by God and that everything he has made is good. The renounciation should then be directed towards the thing that makes the good things of God bad which is sinfulness. As Jesus said we should renounce our sinful ways and direct our lives towards God, this should be first and foremost in our lives.

The pull of sin is strong in the world and many people have felt is grip through the vices that a sinful world holds upon our hearts. But it is out hearts where the battle is fought and our hearts where we decide whether or not we have the conviction to follow God and his blessed grace or to follow the world and be corrupted.

So I say in my response to what christians should renounce is this. We should renounce sin in all its forms within the hearts of man for it is not from without that we are tempted and test but from within and we must recognize that a christians responsibility first is to change theirselves from within and to make their lives a living sacrifice for Jesus.

 

[chrismon]

I'm not sure I follow some of what you are saying... but then I do not think you are understanding what I have askedl

I have not ignored anything you accuse me of ignoring. When I say "the world" I am not talking about things, I am talking about the ways of this present, dying order in terms of its opposition to the new, breaking-in order of the kingdom of God which has come near. We have claims put upons - we were born into claims of the world, the dying order. When we were reborn in Christ we came under a whole new set of claims of the kingdom of God. The prenouncement and renouncement is the prnouncement of the new (i.e. baptism, life in the Church, suffering for Christ's sake, and so on) and a renouncement of the old (not placing our hope in the powers and advantages which form the hopes of the rebellious sinner). This reouncement is not for the world, but against the falleness of it.

Do you understand better now? This is more than simply renouncing sin, this is a renouncement of the forces while call upon us to be sinners. It is easy enough, for example, to renounce greed. However, it is not as easy to renounce all those things in our lives which we are far to easy to call a financial safety net, but trully amount to no more than greed and often end up being neglectful of the poor and powerless, of whom as Christians we are called to care for. Does this make more sense now?