Tuesday, May 31, 2016

The Meaning of Faith

"Our trusting relationship with a God who saves in Jesus Christ cannot be allowed to reduce or make superfluous human initiative and responsibility.  Excessive emphasis on faith as trust and deemphasis of good works, led, in Dulles’ words, to “equally sharp antitheses between Gospel and law, between the heavenly and the earthly kingdoms.”  As a result, it was easier to understand salvation exclusively in “individualistic and other-worldly terms.”  But when Christian faith is seen as a response to the Kingdom, then no matter how boldly we trust, our relationship with God must also find expression in a life lived by the mandate of the Kingdom, the mandate to love God by loving our neighbor.  Without such living, faith is dead."
— Thomas Groome in Christian Religious Education, quoting Dulles in “The Meaning of Faith”

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