Monday, May 09, 2011
It's Not All About YOU
Continuing with Ben Witherington on a "normal Christian life: we encounter Part Two and Part Three. They share a common thread, from Part Two discussing John Wesley:
In other words, Wesley saw spiritual formation primarily happening in a congregational context, or a small group context, but not primarily in a solitary context, much less in a scenario where one 'get's thyself to a nunnery'.And from Part Three:
What has happened in the age of narcissism and 'me first' is that spiritual formation exercises and inventories have all too often taken on the character and ethos of the age, including the radical individualism of our culture. When you take a spiritual inventory that keeps asking questions about your feelings about God, or how close you personally feel to God, there is a good reason to become uneasy. The language and praxis of modern psychology and psychological counseling has crept into the discussions of spiritual formation as if emotions were some sort of good guide or gauge to the state of someone's soul or their relationship with God. But in fact, this is often far from the truth.If I was going to put this in a nutshell, I would make two short statements:
- Christ came to "fix" us, but since we do not have a good handle on how we are broken, those fixes are going to be very different than what we think or maybe even desires.
- In order to "fix" us, Christ pulls us out of ourselves and places us squarely in community and forces us to ask "What is best for the community," not what is best for us.
And yet, the church in its efforts to offer up a plethora of attractive options seems to give precisely the opposite message - "We have what you want." But that dear friends is not what it is about - It is not about you.
Technorati Tags:self, church
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator
