1. Heretical Notion: If Jesus could see the way in which beliefs about the Eucharist have divided his church from 1517 to today, he'd probably say something like, "You know what? Don't even fucking bother. Just forget it." We're worse than the Pharisees in Matthew 23:23 who neglected the weightier matters in favor of the minutiae. While the vipers were at least united in their misdirected focus, we break fellowship over our, at best, speculative theories about the nature of "the mint and the dill and the cumin".
2. Devotion: We sometimes recommend to our youth setting aside fifteen minutes for devotions to God each day. We should instead, in each day entirely devoted to God, set aside fifteen minutes for selfish catharsis.
3. Thesis: The Calvinist doctrine of total depravity really does in actual practice lead to a lack of sermons about the older and more timeless orthodox doctrines of spiritual formation, the putting to death of the flesh, and theosis. In such communities, spiritual maturity comes to be thought of as the higher tick marks on an intellectual, doctrinal, or ecclesiological measuring stick.
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