I spend time in Yahoo's Christian chat rooms. I have since about 2001. My theology has meta-morphed a great deal since then and because of this I find myself sometimes having to define "grace" as I have come to see it, to more legalistic believers. I have to tell you, it's like trying to explain rain to someone who has never experienced it. Their standard quip is that Grace only would leave us lawless and in chaos. This is a total misunderstanding of Grace. Once you have the concept of a loving, compassionate, forgiving GOD internalized, you find that you don't want/need to step outside of grace out of natural response to the loving GOD, not because some Damocles ruler is about to smack you on the head/hand/heart. When you FINALLY "get" the concept of love GOD/love others, it becomes a natural extension of who you are (in your heart/mind) and is no longer a response to an external set of rules. But they don't get the "you don't WANT to hurt/lie/steal/rob/abuse" part! So I wanted to share this piece that was shared on an E-list I'm on:
As one of the [UU] denomination’s many itinerant clergy, he [Hosea Ballou] was riding the circuit in the New Hampshire hills with a Baptist preacher one afternoon. They argued theology as they traveled. At one point, the Baptist looked over and said, “Brother Ballou, if I were a Universalist and feared not the fires of hell, I could hit you over the head, steal your horse and saddle, and ride away, and I’d still go to heaven.” Hosea Ballou looked over at him and said, “If you were a Universalist, the idea would never occur to you.” ~ told by the Rev. Elizabeth Strong
http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/2745.shtm
THIS is Grace in action, Grace lived out in our life. That our heart is so profoundly changed that the concept of doing wrong no longer even naturally occurs to us...May we all be found walking the road of Grace
3 comments:
i LOVE this debra. may Grace be multiplied :)
Grace is real. The little story is so eloquent. Hell is also real, but it is the hell of your own creation; the poison thoughts, the chase your tail thinking, the lack of grace you show others is only magnified to you. Grace is free but how sad many do not accept it. As you said, because their thinking conceives of ill.
You only need a vengeful God if you are vengeful yourself. Which means you've missed a whole piece of Jesus' teachings.
The spirit that was in the Pharisees and the spirit that was in St. Stephen cannot see eye to eye. One knows only a legalistic righteousness and therefore claims to be blameless while the other knows the peace which surpasses all understanding. I'd rather have the latter.
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