Replies

(Never have the hiccups within 48 hours of surgery. Especially if you're doing theological stuff with your feet higher than your head)

First and last, yes, Let us hand ourselves over to the Love of God in Jesus and the Spirit and let the chips fall where they may. BUT However it is phrased there is something about appropriating XP's gift. Wherever the impulse or choice or whatever begins (and I hold it begins with God) there seems to be something expected of us, and how we wrestle with that something seems to be where the conversation gets interesting.

For example, I agree that it is all XP's gift. No question, but that gift is poked and prodded and nurtured in me not only with Bible study and prayer but with community and sacrament. That is just my experience.

Further, as I said or implied earlier, there are those who will not come to any serious depth of understanding through Bible study. They just can't study. Heck, I was chaplain for a while at a home for severely handicapped kids. They pretty much needed someone to interpret the Scriptures for them. They needed the help of a trustworthy community for every aspect of their lives, from defecating to praying. If the Church is truly "according to the whole" it's going to involve ministry to those who cannot do what you recommend.

Finally, in a gnomic and problematic articulation I would say there are seeming oppositions in your presentation which I do not think are ultimately opposite. I like to say that in the RC schema, "merit" is a grace. This is to overwhelm the too strict opposition which I think Reformers put on those terms. I have said before if I give my child a dollar, drive her to the store, tell her I'd like a pack of gum for my birthday, and she buys it with my dollar, I am very pleased with her and I "reward" her with the hug I wanted to give her anyway. We both know whose money it was, but we both enjoy the transaction of love. And in a similar way, for me to trust a bunch of men in dresses off in a far country and many of whom have a markedly less than stellar record in their personal lives IS PRECISELY nothing other than trusting God Himself. I depend on these guys, BECAUSE I depend on Jesus, not instead of depending on Jesus.

But I started with a half-hearted commitment as a newly ordained Episcopal priest, to give all I did to him. I trained myself to avoid talking about "my ministry" because I wanted always to remember it was His ministry. And as the Episcopal Church went further and further off the rails, I clung to Him. And here I am, headed for hell as some on this thread will firmly assert.