George Herbert & The Liberation of Grace (eCrozier #238)

On August 21, 2015, in grace, sin, by Diocesan Staff

Pride, as we know, is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It celebrates the self and the self’s accomplishments over others and their accomplishments. In extreme form, pride places the self above God and what God’s accomplished in our creation and in our redemption in Jesus. Even so-called “self-help” can be a form of pride. Books published with the moniker “Christian self-help” are really no help (“Christian” and “self-help” in the same sentence should give us pause). Such books approach sin as if we can cure it by faithfully working harder. But there’s no self-cure for sin. Yet, we think we can balance our pride with a healthy dose of modesty, limiting ourselves to a humble satisfaction and only a diffident delight in who we are and what we’ve done. From my experience, such a balancing act ends up being self-delusional. In his poem, Jordan II, George Herbert tries to pen a poem celebrating God, but gives up when he realizes the object of the celebration is himself (“So did I weave my self into the sense”). Even our efforts that seem selfless can end up serving our self-aggrandizement. He writes:

When first my lines of heav’nly joyes made mention,
Such was their lustre, they did so excell,
That I sought out quaint words and trim invention;
My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell,
Curling with metaphors a plain intention,
Decking the sense, as if it were to sell. 

Thousands of notions in my brain did runne,
Off’ring their service, if I were not sped:
I often blotted what I had begunne;
This was not quick enough, and that was dead.
Nothing could seem too rich to clothe the sunne,
Much lesse those joyes which trample on his head.

 As flames do work and winde, when they ascend,
So did I weave my self into the sense.
But while I bustled, I might heare a friend
Whisper, How wide is all this long pretence!
There is in love a sweetnesse readie penn’d;
Copie out onely that, and save expense.

Balance, in this way, isn’t at all helpful for me. The only help is my clear-eyed, full-hearted (Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights!) acknowledgment of the mixed bag sinner I am. Seeking a balance between selfishness and selflessness is a dead end (or between greed and generosity, or envy and admiration). What is helpful is an unfiltered honesty about myself, mixed bag sinner that I am. As Herbert concludes in Jordan II, God’s love for us is a “sweetnesse readie penn’d.” It’s the “onely” cure. All else will delude us into believing that we can strike a balance between our sinfulness (say 49% of the time) and a more faithful life (say 51% of the time). It’s Sisyphean. It’ll produce in us an all-encompassing exhaustion rather than set loose in us the liberation of grace.

+Scott

 
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Blessed Knuckleheads Resting in the Shade of God’s Grace (eCrozier #267)

On June 12, 2015, in faith, God’s Kingdom, grace, Parable, by bishopbenhase

A woman and a man were walking down a busy, noisy city sidewalk when the woman suddenly stopped and said: “Did you hear that songbird singing?” The man said: “Are you crazy, who could hear a songbird singing with the sound of jackhammers, car horns, and people yelling all around us?” She looked around at the people walking passed them and nobody seemed to notice. She replied: “But I heard it clearly.” Then she reached in her purse, took out a handful of coins and dropped them on the pavement. Immediately, the passersby all stopped, got on their knees, and began picking up the coins. The woman turned to the man and said: “We hear what we learn to hear.”

And that brings us to the parables we have as this Sunday’s Gospel lesson from Mark 4. I’ve heard numerous sermons on these two parables over the years. I’ve read many commentaries about what they mean. I have to conclude that most get it wrong. I did, too, for the longest time. After all, “we hear what we learn to hear.” Since most of us we’re raised in an American culture that worships the almighty self, we learn to hear things through that filter. When hearing something new, we filter it through our cultural shaping, which is individualistic and self-oriented. We can’t hear the proverbial songbird singing, because all we hear is the sound of coins clinking on the pavement.

So, when we read the Parable of the Growing Seed or the Parable of the Mustard Seed, we tend to place ourselves at the center of both parables. In the Growing Seed, it’s the seed of faith growing in us, which eventually grows into a full grain at the harvest (our resurrection). In the Mustard Seed, it’s smallest of all seeds growing in us, but even though it’s small, eventually it becomes a substantial tree by the time we’re resurrected. Notice how the self is at the center of both parables. The problem is: That’s not what Jesus says. Inconvenient that. Read both and you’ll hopefully hear what he’s saying.

Jesus says the seed is God’s Kingdom growing and not the seed of faith in us. In both parables, humanity isn’t in control. Yes, in the Growing Seed the sower scatters, but then she takes a nap, heads to the gym, does her business’ books, and then picks up the kids at carpool. All the while God’s Kingdom is growing, but she “knows not how” (4:27). And in the Mustard Seed, God’s Kingdom is this seed, which defies appearances and grows beyond expectations. We had no role in it becoming the “greatest of all shrubs.” We’re merely the blessed knuckleheads that get to nap in its shade (4:32).

But our culture has taught us that we should have a more prominent role. Don’t we have to toil, sweat, and from our cleverness and productivity produce the harvest of the Kingdom? It must depend on us because it’s all about us, isn’t it? Sure, go ahead and believe that. Yet, that’s not what Jesus says of the Kingdom, whose harvest comes about by God’s grace and not our mistaken merit, no matter how clever or productive we are. Our role is simply one of “praise and thanksgiving” as the Eucharist tells us. We’re the blessed knuckleheads that get invited into the shade of God’s restful grace. And there are lots of other knuckleheads out there who’d be amazed to learn that there’s a God who’d bring about such grace. Let’s show them what that looks like.

+Scott

 
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Marketplace, The Princess Bride, and Costly Grace (eCrozier #264)

On May 22, 2015, in grace, by bishopbenhase

On NPR’s Marketplace recently their reporters dealt with stories of economic transactions and how different types have profound effects on people’s lives. The first story was romantic. A young man sits one seat away from a young woman at an NBA game in Milwaukee. His friend is sitting between them and, while his friend chats with the young woman, he hardly says a word to her. His only memory of her was she was wearing an Indiana University sweatshirt. Then weeks later, the young man is at the Detroit airport waiting for a flight. He sees the young woman in the same IU sweatshirt. That causes him to recognize her. They talk recounting how they met at the game. When the plane boards, they wish each other a nice flight thinking that’s it. But they end up sitting next to one another on that flight. They talk for the whole flight, exchange phone numbers, and long story short: They’re now married with a child. “It was meant to be,” the young woman said. They’re transactions involving game tickets, flights, and especially buying that IU sweatshirt, led to their life together.

The second story was about a family’s long desired vacation to Hawaii. They research and plan for months. They book a condo, flights, and a rental car for the week. Right before they leave, they learn that the husband’s mother is dying. She has just weeks to live. They readily cancel their long anticipated vacation to be with her. They’ll lose most of their non-refundable flight costs. They can cancel the rental car with no penalty. The condo agreement, however, clearly states that a late cancellation would require them to forfeit the week’s rent. The wife emails the condo owner explaining why they must cancel. The owner writes back saying he’ll return all their money. He tells her his wife was diagnosed with ALS last year. He knows they’re grieving. He’s been moved by the compassion others have shared with his family. The wife whose mother-in-law was dying said she was overwhelmed by a total stranger’s kindness. It transformed her life. She would now treat others similarly in the future. If that family had never transacted for the condo, then they never would’ve had this profound experience.

The Marketplace story saw these two stories to be about “transactional grace,” which is really oxymoronic. The first “transaction” wasn’t about grace. It might’ve been about coincidence, or even providence, or as is said in The Princess Bride, “true love,” but no one sacrificed anything except the money to buy game and flight tickets and that sweatshirt. While it’s a beautiful story, there was no personal “cost” to the two people involved. They simply took advantage of the opportunity the transactions provided.

The second transaction is about grace. For grace always requires an intentional sacrifice. The condo owner knowingly sacrificed his entitled rental fee even though he could’ve kept it. If there is no intentional sacrifice or cost, then there is no grace. We should understand grace that way, because it will help us fathom just how amazing it is, both with the graces we offer and receive in our lives and with God’s Grace freely given us in Jesus Christ. And once such “costly grace” (to use Bonhoeffer’s phrase) sinks home, we’ll want to practice such grace with others, not as a quid pro quo transaction, but as the way God has called you and me to live in this world.

+Scott

 
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Flannery O’Connor Instructs us on Grace (eCrozier #262)

On May 8, 2015, in grace, by bishopbenhase

Human nature is so faulty that it can resist any amount of grace and most of the time it does.
– The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor

When I was reading again some of Flannery O’Connor’s letters the above quote hit me like a 2×4 up the side of my head. “Yes,” I said out loud (and I usually don’t speak out loud when I’m reading). Ms. O’Connor’s insight into human nature and God’s grace has always walloped me. We resist grace because it comes to us not on our own terms. In a culture that rewards achievement and merit, grace makes no sense. Thus, we rebel against it as if it were foreign to our experience, which of course it so often is. We can’t earn it. We can’t claim it as our own. We can’t rationalize receiving it as a just reward. It’s a pure gift from God through Jesus Christ in which we must trust.

One of Ms. O’Connor’s characters in her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, says: “Jesus thrown everything off balance.” That’s what grace does. It throws “off balance” a world based on personal achievement or self-justification. And of all things, our cultural celebration of Christmas helps distort our comprehension of grace. I’ll explain. Let’s say at Christmas we receive a gift from someone from whom we didn’t expect to receive a gift. To our discomfort, we really love the gift. What’s our first reaction? Exactly: We didn’t get that person a gift of equal or greater value. Grace is the gift for which we can give nothing in return to even things out. That’s why “Jesus thrown everything off balance” is on point. Grace undermines our assumptions about how life should work.

Elsewhere Ms. O’Connor writes: “The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.” The “smug,” the self-justifying, the pull-yourself-up-by your-own-bootstraps types don’t care much for grace. It doesn’t fit into their worldview of how things should be. They prefer to divide the world into worthy folk like themselves and others who are sinners. They’ll in most cases acknowledge their own sin, but see it as small potatoes compared to others. It’s easy to find someone else who’s a worse sinner. It aids one’s self-justification.

Ms. O’Connor writes in Everything That Rises Must Converge: “She was a good Christian woman with a large respect for religion, though she did not, of course, believe any of it was true.” While “the operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner,” often those who have “a large respect for religion” don’t believe the Church should really operate that way, because deep down, they refuse to believe in a God who would be that weak-kneed by letting sinners off the hook. Religion for such folks isn’t about the grace given to sinners through the cross of Jesus. No, for such folk religion is about controlling other people and making sure they follow the rules.

Trusting in God’s grace and practicing it with everyone else, changes us. Ms. O’Connor writes: “All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us.” But when we let go of our resistance to God’s grace we’ll come to realize that such grace isn’t only God’s way of changing us, it’s God’s way of transforming the world into God’s likeness.

+Scott

 
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A Faithful Response to the Changing Culture (eCrozier #261)

On May 1, 2015, in Anxiety, Change, culture, faith, fear, gospel, grace, by bishopbenhase

As we live through the rapid change of our contemporary culture, some are fearful that Christianity is losing its traditional, privileged place. Demographers tell us that the fastest growing cohort is the so-called “nones,” those with no religious affiliation or particular religious practice. Those who are fearful about this development warn that the lost, privileged place of the Church’s faith will inevitably lead to a growing hostility toward Christianity. Every fear has at least a kernel of truth to it, so there’s reason for us to pay attention. But I don’t think fear about the changing nature of the culture is a faithful response, even as we pay attention to it. Fear is never faithful. All culture is highly elastic and, at least partly, cyclical. Historians look back and find times when particular social, religious, political, and economic conditions in one era were similar to those in another. That’s true of Church history as it overlaps with the larger cultural history. In every age then, the Church faces new as well as familiar challenges for how she will be faithful to the Gospel of Jesus.

I believe we’re in a similar time as to what the Church experienced in the 4th Century. Christianity then had a foothold in the culture, but it was by no means the dominant religion. The Roman Empire had grown vast, outgrowing its own power to govern and control that vastness. In the other words, the Pax Romana wasn’t what it had been. This resulted in great social anxiety as groups sought to blame other groups for why Rome wasn’t what it used to be. Some blamed the Christians. Others blamed the laxness of the traditional Pagan practices. What was evident was this: No one group was dominant or privileged in its ability to guide the culture. This was also the time of the great Church Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon. At these Councils, the Church struggled to define her own faith, identity, and practice. But even amidst the great debate within the Church, we continued to witness to the grace, compassion, and mercy of God. In the middle of the 4th century the Roman emperor Julian (later he had the moniker “the Apostate” attached to his name, which, let’s just say, wasn’t a term he chose) wrote a sarcastic complaint about the Christians he observed: “These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also. While our pagan priests neglect the poor, these hated Galileans devote themselves to works of charity.” 

The Church today is struggling, as we always have, to live out our faith, identity, and practice. As was true 17 centuries ago, today we’re not all of one mind on various issues. But that has never stopped the Church from its essential witness to the world’s redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ. We’ll need to continue to find ever more creative and effective ways of sharing and dispensing God’s grace to this beautiful, yet broken world, especially as it becomes more disinterested in or indifferent to the Gospel. So, I believe the truth claims we make about Jesus will never win the day if they’re limited to a “we’re right and your wrong” contest. I think the Emperor Julian (the Apostate) unwittingly showed us the most effective way: A steadfast commitment to sharing God’s unmerited grace with others, particularly to those who are lonely, lost, or left out in our culture, through specific acts that make tangible God’s grace in their lives. The old camp song has it so right: “They will know we are Christians by our love.”

+Scott

 
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Change is Hard (eCrozier #260)

On April 24, 2015, in Change, grace, Transformation, by bishopbenhase

Change is hard. We resist it. I resist it. I prefer the familiar, the known, the comfortable. It helps me make sense of the world. I’m drawn to rules and routines because it reduces the level of chaos in my life.

Some rules, routines, habits, and customs are life-giving. They help shape our faithful living as long as they remain realistic and manageable, rather than become yet another piece of evidence of how we have failed to live up to some standard (our or others). When that happens, we can fall into the trap of unhelpful self-judgment leading to the downward spiral of self-condemnation.

This means that personal change, or what we in faith would call spiritual transformation, must come from the inside working of the Holy Spirit in our lives rather than from the outside critique of others. I know from personal experience that the changes I’ve made in my life and the spiritual transformation I’ve experienced never was aided by constant nagging from others or from their very willing desire to point out my many faults. Some “trolls” don’t just live in cyberspace. Such change and transformation, if it is to be real and lasting, comes from the inside out.

This is not to say that feedback from others should be ignored simply because it comes from outside of us. Those who love us enough to be truthful with us are indispensable partners in our personal and spiritual growth. We need to hear from them. While such feedback may not always be pleasant to receive, if we can avoid getting defensive, it can be an important ingredient in our work of personal and spiritual growth.

Even then, making a change in the way we live our lives, rather than displaying the pretension of change (see the New Yorker cartoon above), is still no walk in the park. If we fail (and often, we will, at least in our initial efforts), we can spiritually beat ourselves up and see ourselves as complete failures, which then reinforces unhelpful self-judgment. But if we succeed, we actually open ourselves to another danger of developing a self-righteous stance in the world. In effect we’d be saying: “See what I did! Why can’t

everyone be like me?”

Personal, spiritual change is hard. As we seek it, we should avoid connecting it to God’s grace-filled love for us. God loves us whether we make a desired change or not. This is actually the most liberating news we can receive. It can give us the grace and the courage to become what God desires for us.

+Scott

 
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St. Benedict’s Guide to Lent (eCrozier #252)

On February 27, 2015, in Benedictine, grace, Lent, Spiritual Disciplines, by bishopbenhase

During these days (of Lent), therefore, let us add something to the usual measure of our service, such as private prayers and abstinence from food and drink, that each one, of his own free will and with the joy of the Holy Spirit, may offer God something over and above the measure appointed for him. That is to say, let him deny himself some food, drink, sleep, pointless conversation and banter, and look forward to Easter with joy and spiritual longing. Rule of St Benedict 49

Part of a traditional Lenten discipline is to deny ourselves something we usually enjoy during the rest of the year. It’s one way for us to remember gratefully the “great denial” Jesus made on our behalf; for he denied himself and took up the cross for our sake. Benedict’s admonition from his Rule reminds us that we shouldn’t do this out of obligation, but out of our “joy and spiritual longing” for Easter. So, we don’t engage in self-denial to prove anything to our self or to others. We don’t do so to impress God or others. And we certainly don’t do so for the purpose of self-justification, which is always a dangerous path to travel. Benedict reminds us there’s a telos to this Lenten discipline and it is joy, the root of that word being, God (“to enjoy” is literally to be “in God”).

I don’t know about you, but I find it easier to deny myself some things more than others. While I enjoy good food and drink, I don’t miss it much when I don’t have it. I’m pretty pedestrian in my tastes and my palate is hardly that of a gourmand. So, for me to give up chocolate or single malt scotch (of which I’m unworthy anyway) or some other delicacy may appear like an act of self-denial to some, but to me, since I could take it or leave it, it’s hardly what Benedict had in mind. When we make such non-denial denials, it’s for the sake of appearances to others and not for a true Lenten discipline.

But, “pointless conversation and banter” hits me closer to the bone. Denying myself that is much harder. Thus, it’s a more needed act of denial on my part. Maybe more than any other vocation in the Church, a bishop regularly engages in “pointless conversation and banter” whether he or she desires to or not. That’s not to say with we don’t participate in “pointed conversation.” Of course we do, hopefully more often than not. But the temptation to deflect or to ignore or to trivialize rather than to get to the heart and truth of the matter is always there. Like with many temptations, such behaviors are a way to run away from one’s true self and the vocation to which I’m called.

Lent then can serve as an invitation for us to get back to the heart and truth of the matter in our lives; to recognize how we might be too serious about the trivial banter in our lives and not be taking seriously enough the people, things, and circumstances of our lives that matter. This is what Benedict meant by stability in the three-fold promise Benedictine monk’s make; that capacity to hang in there when the temptation is to run away from what’s difficult, or to deflect the issue by “pointless conversation,” or to trivialize ourselves or others. Such self-awareness comes as a gift even though it’s often hard to receive. Yet, if we accept the gift for what it is, then we enter into a place where the ground is holy and where we open ourselves daily to the thrust of grace.

+Scott

 
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Brian Williams, St Augustine, & Me (eCrozier #250)

On February 13, 2015, in grace, love, news, sin, St. Augustine, by bishopbenhase

When I was about 14 years old, a group of guys I desperately wanted to hang out with invited me to an overnight party where the boy’s parents would be out of town. I made up some lie to my parents assuring them that there’d be adult supervision. So, I went hoping to fit in with this group. The party turned out to be boring. We played cards and listened to music. Someone brought beer. As so often happens when teenage boys mix beer and togetherness, someone had a “bright” idea: “Let’s go steal some road signs!” We went into the garage, found some tools, and set off to steal. I don’t recall how many road signs we took that night. Who knows what kind of danger we put motorists in during the weeks that followed? Why did I steal those road signs? I wanted acceptance. I wanted to be part of the cool kid’s group. I’m ashamed of my behavior even to this day.

In his Confessions, St Augustine tells about a time as a teenager when he and some friends scaled the wall of a neighbor’s pear orchard. While there, they picked a pear tree clean of its fruit. St Augustine says his group did this “not to eat the fruit ourselves, but simply to destroy it.” Why did he and his friends engage in such pointless destruction? Were there “double dares” declared? For St Augustine, the answer for why he did such a thing was clear: our inherent human sinfulness. OK. But I also wonder, was the pear tree incident about him wanting acceptance by the other boys? Did he just want to fit in with the cool kid’s group? He, too, was ashamed of his behavior.

And that brings us to Brian Williams, the NBC News Anchor, who is currently being pilloried in the media for his lies about his record as a TV journalist in Iraq during the war and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He apparently embellished his record citing deprivations and dangers that were simply false. We don’t know how he really feels about these embellishments. So far, his response to being exposed hasn’t been quite “confessional.” He hasn’t said why he felt he needed purposely to misrepresent his resume. Why would someone who has achieved all he has feel a need to lie about his record? My hunch is there’s something inside telling him that what he’s achieved isn’t good enough; that embellishing his resume would make him more loved and accepted; that the lies he told would assure him of a seat at the cool kid’s table. He didn’t steal road signs or destroy pears, but I hope on some level he’s ashamed of his behavior.

There’s something profoundly human about the need we have to be loved and accepted by others. We all long for others to love us. We desire their acceptance. But such longing and desire can become consuming and twisted because it can never be fully satisfied this side of heaven. Just how much love and acceptance do we need? We may get plenty of both, but we may never feel that’s enough. That’s the power sin exercises in our lives. That’s why we shouldn’t be so snarky about Brian Williams’ situation. He’s just struggling with the same issues with which we all struggle, that is, if we’re honest with ourselves. Even accepting God’s grace-filled acceptance of us through the mediation of Jesus on the cross doesn’t keep us from longing to sit at the cool kid’s table. My prayer is that Brian Williams and all of us finally realize how truly unimportant that is. God’s grace is more than sufficient for all of us.

+Scott

 
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Grace and the Virtue of Self-Restraint (eCrozier #246)

On January 16, 2015, in Christian freedom, Community, culture, grace, by bishopbenhase

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial. – 1 Corinthians 6:12

The Christians in Corinth believed St Paul’s message of God’s unmerited grace in Jesus and thus they weren’t bound to keep Judaism’s food and purity laws. It was God’s grace mediated through Jesus saved them. Following such religious food and purity laws couldn’t do that. But some were using this freedom from such religious laws to rub it in the face of others. So, they’d say things like: “all things are lawful for me.” They flaunted their freedom from such religious laws to satisfy their own desires. They weren’t considering what would be beneficial for the other. They were basically saying: “I’m free do anything I please because I’m saved by grace alone.” St Paul agrees with them, but he also points out that while they’re indeed free, they have a responsibility to honor other people. He argues that even though God’s grace has given them the “right” to do something, they don’t necessarily need to exercise that right. Rather, they should consider what would be “beneficial” for the other person.

Later, St Paul uses the example of eating food sacrificed to idols to make this point. Now, that was a big deal in the polyreligious city of Corinth. There were shrines there to every imaginable god where people could bring animals to sacrifice. The best steak houses were right next door to these shrines since they got the choicest cuts of meat. So, St Paul makes it clear they have the right to eat meat sacrificed at such shrines because those gods aren’t real. But he says they shouldn’t do it because it may cause the less mature people among them to think they were really there to worship a pagan god. St Paul says that there are more important things than simply exercising one’s rights. Now that doesn’t mean we must always steer clear of any behavior that may upset others. At times that’s unavoidable. But before we engage in such behavior, we should look within ourselves to make sure that an action we contemplate is a matter of an important principle and not simply the satisfaction of a desire to exercise “our rights.”

And that brings us to the conversation many are having over the satire produced by the magazine, Charlie Hedbo. The thugs who murdered members of the magazine’s staff used their offense at the satire produced by the magazine as justification for their heinous deed. No amount of cartoon offense justifies murder. But just because the cartoonists had the right to ridicule other people’s deeply held beliefs doesn’t mean they had to do so as they regularly did. I hope we all want to uphold the right to the free expression of ideas. That doesn’t mean, however, that expressing every idea that plops into our heads is a good thing. Self-restraint is a virtue. Recognizing how expressing our ideas and exercising our rights affect others is a sign of our maturity, our respect, and it’s a way for us to honor the other, even if they don’t seem to deserve honor. For it’s not about them. It’s about us. It’s about how we conduct our lives. As Teju Cole of The New Yorker writes: “The cartoonists were not mere gadflies, not simple martyrs to the right to offend: they were ideologues. Just because one condemns their brutal murders doesn’t mean one must condone their ideology.” The cartoonists had the right to their ideology, as do we. But can’t we still show some self-restraint and honor?

+Scott

 
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Have Yourself A Merry Non-Semi-Pelagian Christmas (eCrozier #244)

On December 19, 2014, in christmas, culture, forgiveness, grace, salvation, by bishopbenhase

Research released this fall illuminated something I’ve had a hunch about for some time: Many Christians, even those who claim they hold orthodox belief, actually have theological convictions that aren’t congruent with the Church’s traditional teaching. In some ways, this shouldn’t be surprising. We all have a tendency to believe that what we believe is right because, well, we’re the ones who believe it. So then what we believe must be orthodox. Of course, that’s a non sequitur. But sin in our lives leads us to one non sequitur after another, does it not?

This particular research showed divergence from orthodox teaching in a number of areas, but the one that showed the largest gap between the Church’s teaching and research participants’ belief concerned the work of God’s redemptive grace. In the research, two-thirds of the participants said that we’re reconciled with God by our own initiative and then God responds to our initiative with grace. So, we first seek God out and only then does God’s mercy and forgiveness become operative in our lives. This has its own internal logic based on Enlightenment constructs of individualism, fairness, and reciprocity (the old quid pro quo, as it were). It makes sense to us. It sounds like it should be the way God works. It has a certain truthiness to it, as Stephen Colbert might say. As Americans who are steeped in deep internal codes of personal responsibility, we like the idea that we have a co-starring role to play in our own drama of redemption. The problem is: That’s NEVER been the orthodox teaching of the Church.

And that brings us to the 5th Century Englishman, Pelagius. Yes, he was a Brit so we Anglicans have to claim him. He’s in our spiritual family tree. He’s like that crazy great uncle we have that no one in the family wants to acknowledge, but own him we must. Pelagius contended that humans first choose God by their own personal gumption. Our sin, original or otherwise, did not, according to Pelagius, impair our ability to choose wisely by choosing God. In other words, we must choose to appropriate the benefits of God’s grace through the power of our own will. This came to be known as Pelagianism. Two Church Councils, first in 418 A.D. at Carthage and then in Ephesus in 431 A.D., rightly rejected Pelagianism. A century later a spinoff of Pelagianism, known rather non-creatively as Semi-Pelagianism, became popular. This sought to affirm the orthodox teaching about humanity’s original sin, while at the same time still insisting that we must take the initiative for God’s grace to be operative. In 529, the Council of Orange said “nice try Semi-Pelagianists,” and rejected their views.

As I listen to Christians in America, it seems to me that the vast majority of us are de facto Semi-Pelagianists. God’s grace makes us uneasy. Grace doesn’t feel right or fair. It’s like we’re getting something we don’t deserve or didn’t have to work for at all; that we didn’t get it the old fashioned way by earning it. It’s as if someone gave us something exceptionally amazing at Christmas, something it turns out that we really loved and needed, and it’s not that we just forgot to get him anything in return, we actually chose not to get him anything at all. EXACTLY. And, for me, that’s what puts the “merry” in Christmas.

+Scott

 
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