"After You Believe" - Reclaiming Christian Virtue

During commercials of the NCAA men's basketball championship last night, I was able to finish reading the book, "After You Believe," by Tom Wright. I won't spend a lot of time on the first part of the book since I already covered that in an article a week ago. By the way, congratulations to Butler on making this one of the best tournaments in recent memory! I also liked seeing the sign that read, "Duke Divinity School" which was lifted in front of the TV camara at one point.

First of all, as a United Methodist thinker and proponent of Wesleyan theology, this book articulates what John Wesley taught and believed throughout the formation of the Wesleyan movement - that salvation is more than simply raising a hand in the air to accept Jesus Christ. Not to downplay that significant moment when someone says "yes" to Jesus Christ, but salvation means a lifetime of allowing God's grace to help us to be the people we were created to be - priests and rulers who worship and work for God's justice in the world. To do this, we need to practice Christian virtue.

Wright doesn't soft peddle that this intentional life of exercising Christian virtue will be easy. No, we need to develop habits of reading/hearing scripture regularly, examples of mature Christians, stories of faithfulness to the gospel, participation in the community of faith, and practices (spiritual disciplines.) Because some Christians might be uneasy about this high emphasis on sanctification and the spiritual practices, Wright continually reminds the reader that all of this is born out of God's grace, and not something we are doing to earn God's love or favor.

What I most like about this book is that Wright reminds us that living a Christian life isn't a simple and easy matter. It calls us to be open to God's grace again and again and to practice the spiritual disciplines with the goal in mind which is to live our lives in such a way that anticipates that time in the future when heaven and earth will be as one and God's glory and beauty will flood this earth.

Not a bad goal to have in life, is it?