“This language of loss and diminuition clearly suggests the possibility of coming to nothing, of annihilation stricto sensu. That is what gives it the undeniable power it has. For Augustine, as for most of the fathers of the church, the possibility of self-annihilation is suggested by a grammar of participation and gift. On this view, the fact that you are is sheer unmerited gift, and what you are is a participant in the LORD. Continue reading Griffiths on The Lure of the Void
Tag Archives: sin
A Poor Church-Growth Strategy? (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“That we are taught to confess our sin, particularly during Lent, is not something to which we look forward. We are not at all sure an emphasis on sin is a good idea. We are in a time of a dramatic loss in membership in mainline Protestantism. We need to attract new people. Telling people they are possessed by sin does not sound like a good church-growth strategy. Continue reading A Poor Church-Growth Strategy? (Series on “Minding the Web”)
A Lifetime Project (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“One of the great advantages of being a Christian is that we are in a lifetime project to discover how to confess our sins. To be able to confess our sins is a theological achievement that our baptisms have made possible. For sin, as Karl Barth maintained, is only known in the light of Christ. Thus from Barth’s perspective, our fundamental sin consists in the presumption that we can know our sin without having become a disciple of Christ. In short, to be a Christian means we must be trained to be a sinner. Continue reading A Lifetime Project (Series on “Minding the Web”)
Life Under the Law When We Are a Law Unto Ourselves (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“We do not think we live in a time when moral conventions (which is just another word for the Law) determine our lives, but we do. We may not quite be in a Jane Austen world, but we are close. Jane Austen lived in a world of clear social conventions in which everyone knew what was the right thing to do or say, particularly when you were at dinner. Her novels are relentless investigations of whether people who always seem to do the right thing, in fact, have a true heart. Continue reading Life Under the Law When We Are a Law Unto Ourselves (Series on “Minding the Web”)
On (Not) Knowing our Sins (Series on “Minding the Web”)
“That we may have the haunting thought we are only playing at being a sinner, I suspect, involves the more general worry that, in the world in which we now find ourselves, we are not at all sure if we know what it means to be a Christian. I suspect we are not even sure we know what being a Christian looks like. Surely, to be a Christian means more than being a nice person that believes stuff about God. There is, after all, the Sermon on the Mount. But then that is one of the problems: we cannot imagine living out the demands of the Sermon. But because we cannot imagine living the type of lives the Sermon seems to envisage, we cannot help but fear that we are only playing at being Christian. Continue reading On (Not) Knowing our Sins (Series on “Minding the Web”)