Friday, May 23, 2014

An over-emphasis on grace yields lack of programmatic sanctification

"Boring Grace? A review of One Way Love- Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World" (theweeflea, October 2013):
The reviews I read about Tullian Tchividjian’s One Way Love were so enthusiastic that I immediately shelved out the £7.99 for the Kindle version, stopped reading the latest Keller book and jumped in, looking forward to a stimulating and encouraging account of Gods grace in my exhausted world.
Our correspondent on retainer observes:
Tullian Tchividjian (grandson of Billy Graham, and hereafter Double T because who can spell that?) is the champion of "All Grace. All, Absolutely, and Without Qualification or Complication." It is the pietistic and Protestantized-version of Walter Kasperism, I think. Though TT's rhetorical tone and his penchant for single emphasis theologizing unfortunately remind me more remind me of our own Christopher West!
D.G. Hart picks up the following apology to him by Mark Jones in "No Need to Apologize to Me" (Old Life, May 21, 2014):
Commenting on what typically happens after times of revival – sorry, D.G. Hart – James Stalker wrote: “it is no unusual thing to find the initial stage of religion regarded as if it were the whole. Converts go on repeating the same testimony till it becomes nauseous to their hearers as well as unprofitable to themselves. In the religion of many there is only one epoch; there is no program of expanding usefulness or advancing holiness; and faith is only the constant repetition of a single act. [or thought].” Indeed. (emphasis mine)
[Hat tip to G.N.]

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