Willard Wednesdays

The Divine Conspiracy: Chapter 2 Gospels of Sin Management (pp.41-42)

Sharing quotes from Dallas Willard through one of my favorite books..The Divine Conspiracy.

"The current situation , in which faith professed has little impact on the whole of life, is not unique to our times, nor is it a recent development.  But it is currently at an acute stage.  History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is thought to be essentially concerned with how to deal with sin: with wrongdoing or wrong-being, and its effects.  Life, our actual experience, is not included in what is now presented as the heart of the Christian message, or it is included only marginally.  That is where we find ourselves today."  

"To the right, being a Christian is a matter of having your sins forgiven.   To the left, you are a Christian if you have a significant commitment to the elimination of social evils.  A Christian is either one who is ready to die and face the judgment of God or one who has an identifiable commitment to love and justice in society.  That's it."  

"The history that has brought this about-being filtered through the Modernist/Fundamentalist controversy that consumed American religion for many decades and still works powerfully in its depths-also has led each wing to insist that what the other takes for essential should not be regarded as essential." 

"What right and left have in common is that neither group lays down a coherent framework of knowledge and practical direction adequate to personal transformation toward the abundance and obedience emphasized in the New Testament, with a corresponding redemption of ordinary life."

continued next Wednesday....