The Eight Deadly (Digital) Thoughts and a (remarkably Lutheran) Ladder
A chapel talk posted below, I hope, with some self-awareness
Should you wish some quotes to serve as the backdrop to this chapel message (the kind no self-respecting communicator would weigh down a sermon with), here is Hieromonk Gabriel Bunge on the Orthodox side from his book Despondency:
In times when the demons, formerly driven out by Christ, have returned under new names and in other [digital?] disguises, more numerous than before, the commandment of the hour appears to be to name them once more by their correct names. This is all the more so because the quite incorrect opinion has spread that they should not be named at all. At such a moment, some believe that once and for all we have “demythologized” the mysterium iniquitatis (mystery of iniquity) and have finally transformed into pure imagination not only evil but also “so-called” evil. But then look! The one demon that is driven out returns with seven others that are worse, in order to seize the house all the more easily when they fine it unguarded (35).
And here’s Jordan Cooper on the Protestant end from his book Two Hands of Faith:
The doctrine of sanctification is an essential one in Lutheran [and we could add Anglican] orthodoxy. It is not negated or downplayed due to the centrality of justification in the Lutheran theological system…. Lutheran theologians have placed sanctification after justification as an essential elements of God’s redeeming work within the human creature. Salvation is both forensic and renovative. Justification is a legal term, referring to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and the forgiveness of sins; sanctification is is about inherent righteousness which actually changes the believer inwardly…. In the Lutheran tradition, sanctification is not described as monergistic (92-93; 95).
So yes, my college president is right to insist “sanctification is not by faith alone,” and Protestant Virtue Ethics is not an oxymoron. This fact does not confuse the free, unmerited grace of justification. On the contrary, it confirms it. Or, if you prefer Luther himself, here he is in a text that could not be more central to the Reformation, the 1535 Commentary on Galatians:
Once a people are justified and through faith they possess Christ, knowing that He is their righteousness and their life, they will certainly not walk around with their arms crossed. As a good tree, they will yield good fruit. Since the believers have the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit does not permit laziness but provokes them to exercise devotion, love to God; to suffer patiently all afflictions… We also [like Rome] say that faith without works is nothing and empty… faith without work… is a mere daydream and illusion of the heart; it is false and does not justify (131).
And that is why ladders can be good, so long as they’re made from Calvary’s timber. Furthermore, a quick look at the mercilessly vertical alternatives out there might make you glad I chose the one I did.
