Monday, June 05, 2006
Foster, R (1998) Streams of Living Water
We must imitate Christ's life and his way, if we are to he truly enlightened and set free from the darkness of our own hearts. Let it be the most important thing we do, then, to reflect on the life of Jesus Christ.
THomAs A KEmpis
james shows us how we can be hooked into a different kind of reality, a spiritual reality that in turn produces a different kind of person, which in the natural course of things produces a different kind of action. Forming this "different kind of person" is the burden of James's Epistle and the reason he is such a moving example of the Holiness Tradition. pp69
True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it.
WILLIAM PENN
Social justice is where the central issue in the Holiness Tradition - love-meets the road. Dag Hammarskj61d wrote, "The road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action."69 And so the supernatural resources to live appropriately - to live the virtuous life - now extend out into our relationships with people and with social structures and even with the earth itself. pp 143
It is, of course, a genuine danger for the Holiness Tradition to operate on a pietistic level that never engages the social dimensions of its work, or for the Evangelical Tradition to preach a gospel that fails to understand the larger context of its message. But these dangers pale when compared to the pitfall in the Social Justice Tradition of caring for social needs without reference to the condition of the heart. Organizations without number have begun with a wholehearted commitment to minister to both physical and spiritual needs, only to end up severing the spiritual underpinnings of their efforts. The only thing these organizations have left is a kind of social salvation that leaves people rooted in spiritual despair and alienated from God. pp 155
A third peril is the tendency to present too limited a view of the salvation that is found in Jesus Christ. There are two aspects to this problem. One is the ellipse of the whole of a person's life in favour of the sole issue of getting into heaven; the other is a pronounced individualism that neglects social responsibility and prophetic insight. .
Now, this pitfall emerges because of a valid concern that we never lose sight of the evangelistic call for commitment to Christ - a commitment that must extend all the way down to the most personal and individual level. We should affirm the concern, but we must also affirm that the call to commitment extends out as well as down. It must encompass, first, our entire discipleship before God and, second, our community and institutionallife. Christ came to break the shackles of both personal sin and social sin, The salvation that is in Jesus Christ impacts all levels of human existence personal, social, institutional. pp194
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THomAs A KEmpis
james shows us how we can be hooked into a different kind of reality, a spiritual reality that in turn produces a different kind of person, which in the natural course of things produces a different kind of action. Forming this "different kind of person" is the burden of James's Epistle and the reason he is such a moving example of the Holiness Tradition. pp69
True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it.
WILLIAM PENN
Social justice is where the central issue in the Holiness Tradition - love-meets the road. Dag Hammarskj61d wrote, "The road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action."69 And so the supernatural resources to live appropriately - to live the virtuous life - now extend out into our relationships with people and with social structures and even with the earth itself. pp 143
It is, of course, a genuine danger for the Holiness Tradition to operate on a pietistic level that never engages the social dimensions of its work, or for the Evangelical Tradition to preach a gospel that fails to understand the larger context of its message. But these dangers pale when compared to the pitfall in the Social Justice Tradition of caring for social needs without reference to the condition of the heart. Organizations without number have begun with a wholehearted commitment to minister to both physical and spiritual needs, only to end up severing the spiritual underpinnings of their efforts. The only thing these organizations have left is a kind of social salvation that leaves people rooted in spiritual despair and alienated from God. pp 155
A third peril is the tendency to present too limited a view of the salvation that is found in Jesus Christ. There are two aspects to this problem. One is the ellipse of the whole of a person's life in favour of the sole issue of getting into heaven; the other is a pronounced individualism that neglects social responsibility and prophetic insight. .
Now, this pitfall emerges because of a valid concern that we never lose sight of the evangelistic call for commitment to Christ - a commitment that must extend all the way down to the most personal and individual level. We should affirm the concern, but we must also affirm that the call to commitment extends out as well as down. It must encompass, first, our entire discipleship before God and, second, our community and institutionallife. Christ came to break the shackles of both personal sin and social sin, The salvation that is in Jesus Christ impacts all levels of human existence personal, social, institutional. pp194
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