Lent: Simplicity and contentment

Lent is a time for the deliberate discipleship of our desires through refraining and focusing. Often this is portrayed as a somewhat arbitrary burden to be carried, as though the carrying of a burden were itself good. But fasting (or refraining from some regular activity) is not an end in itself, but a means to sharpen our hungering and thirsting for righteousness, for God’s justice. Such disciplines as we accept for this period are not meritorious works of supererogation earning divine brownie points, nor do we seek out pain so as to enjoy the relief from it all the more at its end. We are, in Rowan Williams’ evocative phrase, setting out on "a journey into joy". Lent is a time of preparation for the good news of Easter, but in the light of the cross and resurrection, we discover that the very disciplining of our desires is already good news, not merely preparation for it. The gospel does not add ethics as an appendix, the fine print of obedience you sign up for when you accept the gift of forgiveness. No, ethics is already good news. The disciplining of desire is also the liberation of desire; by learning self-control, we become free. We are learning to love rightly and so learning to be more human.

I submit that a key aspect of this joyful journey for many western Christians is an exodus of liberation from consumerism, the state of bondage in which we are consumed by what we consume. Our toys so often own us. In such a context, learning to delight in less is an affirmation of a life with more of the things that matter. The simple life is not only a matter of justice (living simply so that others can simply live) – though it is certainly that in a world of ever more apparent ecological limits – the simple life is also the good life. Receiving all God’s gifts with thanks enables us to let (many of) them go and to let go the desire for more that makes us discontent. Let us instead become discontent with our discontentment, which robs of us of peace and perspective.

The pursuit of justice, insofar as it is woven within the Christian good news, is also part of this same joyous adventure. It is not a fight, but a dance. We do not create it or establish it; we share from what we have ourselves received. Our goal is not the spread of consumerist “wealth” to every member of society and every corner of the globe. Our goal is that in walking the way of the cross, all may discover it to be the way of light.

Not yet concrete enough? Go and sell your possessions, then come follow Christ.
Originally posted at Theopolis.

Ecological responsibility and Christian discipleship III: Recycle or repent?

The final piece of a three part series blogging a sermon preached at St Paul's and St George's 9 am service on 30th January 2011.

I. Human planet: Welcome to the Anthropocene.
II. The Community of Creation: Genesis 1.
III. Recycle or repent? Our response.

Recycle or repent? Our response
Mentioning Jesus reminds us that we're in a series on discipleship, on what it means for us to be called to be Jesus' disciples today. A disciple is a dedicated pupil and if we are to be disciples, it means devoting ourselves to learning everyday from Jesus, learning not just about God, but also about ourselves and our world. It means letting Jesus set the agenda for our lives, seeking to follow in the path that he pioneered. This isn’t a hobby or one aspect of life. Following Jesus requires every minute in our schedule, every pound in our wallets, every relationship, every thought, every breath. This doesn't mean that we spend all our time doing "spiritual things", but that we learn to see all that we do as spiritual.

And that includes our relationship to the created order, to the increasingly fragmented, polluted, scarred, strip-mined, deforested, acidifying, destabilised planet and its life systems that God still promises us is fundamentally good, fundamentally of value in itself, not just in what it can offer us. This too is part of Christian discipleship and demands our attention and reflection, our commitment, repentance and love.

We’re not just talking here about recycling and changing light-bulbs. We're not just talking about planting trees or cycling or taking public transport or flying less or shopping locally or eating less meat or switching to renewable energy companies or buying MSC-certified fish.

By all means, do these things – they are no-brainers. But behaviour modification barely scratches the surface. We need a heart change, which Holy Scripture calls repentance. Lying behind so many of the trends towards ecological degradation are our consumerist lifestyles and their export into the developing world. The whole world can't live at our levels of consumption. So out of justice, out of love, out of what it means to be human and a creature of God, we cannot go on living at our level of consumption.

We need to be turned upside down by the good news that Jesus died to reconcile all things to God. How can we preach the good news of liberation from sin without also proclaiming and pursing a life that turns from selfishness and respects the goodness and integrity of God’s world? How can we love our neighbours without considering their well-being as a whole: physical, emotional, social, spiritual and ecological? How can we pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven and not pay attention to the earth for which we pray?

So composting and turning off the lights when you leave a room are just the tip of the iceberg. The good news of Jesus invites us into a whole-of-life creative resistance to ecological destruction.

First, be thankful. Christian discipleship starts in joy, not fear. It flows from peace, not anxiety. It is a liberation to do what is best, not being forced to do the minimum out of guilt. The world, however marred, is still good and worthy of our thanksgiving.

Second, repent of consumerism. We are not defined by what we buy. We do not need the latest fashion or the shiniest gadget. You don’t need meat every meal or international travel every holiday, we don't need to earn more and spend more. God gives us every good thing to enjoy, and so there is no need to hoard. We can learn contentment, which is grounded in step one: thankfulness. Smashing the hollow idol of endless consumption is not only good for the planet, but also necessary for the soul.

Third, embrace life. We belong to the earth. We are each members of something bigger than ourselves, bigger even than humanity: a creation awaiting its Sabbath rest in God. And so keep learning about the world, opening your eyes to the wonder, mystery and beauty – as well as the tragedy – around us. Find out what is happening to our planet. Mourn for what is being lost. And join with others in creative resistance. And then, perhaps, on a planet with all too many human scars, we may, by God's grace, become humans worthy of the name.
Readers with sharp memories may recall that I've ripped much of this post from the end of my related series on Why be green? Ecology and the gospel. What can I say? I love recycling! If you feel you've really missed out as a result, then try reading the expanded version: twelve easy very difficult steps to ecological responsibility.

What shall we do? Twelve responses to converging crises

Responding to contemporary converging crises
Human society faces a series of converging crises in our economy, energy and ecology. It is very difficult to know exactly how these will interact and pan out. The depth and breadth of the problems can be overwhelming. Recently, a Christian friend asked me for personal advice as to what he can and should do to take these matters seriously. I made the following suggestions (what have I missed? Or how would you improve this list?):

1. Give thanks for the good world. There is so much going wrong with the world and yet it remains a good gift of the Creator. It is right to grieve, but a healthy grief requires the nurturing of our wonder and appreciation for the goodness of the creation that our actions are degrading.

2. Repent of the patterns of consumption and acquisition that lie behind so much of our destructiveness. Billions are spent every year in a largely successful effort to corrupt our desires, convincing us to covet the cornucopia of stuff that pours out of the world's factories. Learning contentment is at the heart of a good response, since it frees us from feeling the need to protect our toys or way of life and so enables us to focus on what is important and worth preserving (the glory of God, the welfare of our neighbour, communities of trust, the richness of God's creation, and so on). This may not end up "saving civilisation", but it helps us keep our heads when all around us are losing theirs.

3. Stay rooted in the gospel of grace, hope, peace and joy that celebrates Christ's death and resurrection so that you are free to grieve, yearn, groan and lament, that is, to pray. The temptation is to look away or harden our heart to the damage and the danger because it hurts too much.

4. Reject false hopes. We are not going to make it out of this place alive, either personally or as a society. The goal is not to secure immortality, but to love, trust and hope. Society is likely to change significantly or even radically during our lifetimes. The myths of endless growth, progress and individualism are likely to be unmasked for the illusions that they are (though this will be resisted because people hate to lose their dreams, far less to admit that their dreams were actually a nightmare). New illusions are likely to replace them. Survival is not your highest goal. Self-protection is a secondary consideration.

5. Assess your life and habitual patterns to see where your ecological footprint can be significantly reduced: eating less meat, flying less frequently or not at all, driving less or not at all, switching to a renewable energy provider, investing in insulation and local power generation, avoiding all unnecessary purchases and buying responsibly (e.g. food that hasn't been strip mining the soil, local products, durable products, and so on).

6. Invest in communities of trust. If and when things get difficult or there are significant disruptions to "normal", then people tend to distrust strangers, but to keep their friends closer. Get to know your neighbours and people in your local community. Strengthen your ties to a local church.

7. Engage organisations seeking to transition to a more resilient and less destructive society (such as the Transition Network, concerning which I'll have more to say soon).

8. Get out of debt, as far as possible. Debt is a bet that the future is going to be more prosperous than the present so that I can incur debt now and will have plenty to pay it off later. This assumption is becoming increasingly dangerous. Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another (Romans 12.8).

9. Petition governments and corporations as citizens, not simply consumers. The roots of our problems are far larger and more systemic than consumer choice or personal greed. Structural changes are required to reduce the damage we are doing. Here is a good example of a letter to banks that briefly makes the case for disinvestment in fossil fuel projects on both ethical and business grounds. Such engagement may begin with petitions or letters, but it certainly needn't end there. Civil disobedience has a noble history in reforming unjust laws and practices.

10. Learn to garden or some other useful skill that you can share with others and which keeps you grounded in the material basis of our existence.

11. Keep learning more about the world and its problems and opportunities. We live in a novel period historically and we currently have the benefit of a large and growing body of research into these matters. Having some idea of the major threats and what they might mean for you, your community, your society and the world helps to orient your practical reason and will make you a more responsible citizen and neighbour.

12. Proclaim the good news, using every means you have, that Jesus is the true and living way, the dawn from on high that has broken upon us who live under the shadow of death and ecological disruption, and which guides our feet in the way of peace.

Thesis question articulation IX: Summary

Summary
Series begins back here.
The project is pointedly contemporary in its focus. The perception of inexorable threats to the future of industrial society as it is presently known is the dark background against which we will explore the possibility (and possibilities) of faithful Christian moral thought. However, the deeper issues are in one sense perennial. The fragility and temporariness of political and social orders may be closer to the surface at times, but it is never so distant as to be irrelevant.

Inhabiting the collective imagination of many Westerners are apocalyptic images drawn not least from the Bible and Hollywood. For those familiar with the alarming statistics concerning ecological damage to the health of the biosphere, it does not take much effort to picture a cascading series of systemic failures, increasingly widespread shortages in the material conditions required for daily life, a breakdown in civil order and rapid descent into violence and chaos. How can moral thought avoid being paralysed or oversimplified by such apocalyptic nightmares?

There is some similarity between my question and the one adopted by C. S. Lewis in his address “Learning in War Time”. Lewis was speaking to an incoming group of undergraduate students in Oxford about the possibility and importance of any kind of reflection in the bleak period following the outbreak of war with Germany in 1939. He noted the threats to the possibility of learning and articulated both philosophical and Christian reasons for both the necessity and possibility of learning even in war time. My question is both narrower (asking after only ecclesial moral attentiveness) and has what may be a less pressing, but even darker background.
This post is part of a series in which I am outlining my current research question. My present working title, which this series seeks to explain, is "Anxious about tomorrow": The possibility of Christian moral attentiveness in the predicament of societal unsustainability.
A. Societal unsustainability: part one; part two
B. Predicament: part one; part two
C. Moral attentiveness: part one; part two
D. Christian: part one
E. Possibility: part one
F. Summary: part one

Lingua Latina: want to learn Latin?

I have recently started learning some basic Latin (beyond the vocab that it's possible to guess from having a good knowledge of English) and on the recommendation of Seamus, I have invested in a wonderful textbook called Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. Pars I: Familia Romana. There is no English in the entire book, you are simply immersed in Latin from page one. However, it is so cleverly structured in always building on what you already know that each page makes sense. For instance, here is the first sentence: Roma in Italia est. Even without the map of Europa on the opposite page, I bet you can understand it. Each sentence introduces one new idea, gradually building (with the help of a few handy illstrata) both your competence and confidence until you're reading fun little narratives about the life of a familia Romana. Who ever imagined that language learning could be so much fun?

In praise of... teachers (meme)

Having been tagged by Michael Jensen, I would like to praise five significant teachers in my life. As I am only allowed five, no offense is intended to the many gifted and caring teachers not found on this list. I have had four significant periods of formal education, so have picked one teacher from each period, and then taken the fifth from an experience of church.

1. Mr Warren Glass
Thornleigh West Primary school
Year 5 was the most important year of my primary school experience, probably of my formal education overall. Until that year, I had been a good and conscientious student. After it, I loved learning. We might not have covered the syllabus, but we had a great time and my horizons were stretched.

Every morning, we would begin with music, lots of it, singing along to the funny-looking man with the guitar. Then, we would discuss current affairs, society and culture. Sometimes, he would just talk about something that had come up in the news and that would take us through to morning tea, or even lunch. Others hated it; I couldn't get enough. After lunch, he would read us books and get us to respond to them creatively, turning the classroom into the narrative we were experiencing. I am sure we must have done some maths and spelling and so on, but I really don't remember. What I do remember is regretting hearing the bell for the end of the day.

Throughout the year, Mr Glass loaned me books personally, and would talk about them when I returned them, forming in me habits of critical novel reading that have continued and broadened ever since. I trace my sense of humour to him. He would tell jokes all day, and the feeling of starting to "get" some of them was a treat. To him I also trace the beginnings of my sense of social responsibility, particularly ecological concern. And Year 5 was also the time that I realised that being a Christian isn't something that happens automatically, but involves personal loyalty to Jesus. Although it took me a few more years to explicitly own that loyalty, the ground-clearing work that happened with Mr Glass was crucial.

Wherever you are, Mr Glass, I salute you - and I thank God for you.

2. Mrs K. Ballantyne
James Ruse Agricultural High School
Year 11 was for my high school years what Year 5 was for my primary schooling. My memories of those two years are far more vivid and three dimensional than the other years put together. Mrs Bal taught me English in year 11 and much of year 12. Educationally, until that point I had focused heavily on maths and science, selecting my subjects to avoid the humanities and studying English under some duress (even though I loved reading). Indeed, Mrs Bal initially had to talk me out of doing the lowest level of English offered at Ruse. Nevertheless, by the end of year 12, I would go on to study Arts at Sydney University, majoring in English and Philosophy. Since I had Mr Ballantyne (husband of Mrs Bal) for Physics, this transformation was something of a victory for her. Mrs Bal introduced me to T. S. Eliot (I still clearly remember reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock), to the first Shakespeare I really understood, enjoyed and was moved by (Hamlet) and to the delightful Tom Stoppard response (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead).

I remember a story I heard about her first ever classroom as a young teacher fresh out of college at a rough school. When she walked in, a boy was sitting on a ledge, dangling his feet out a second-story window. She walked over and shut the window on him, leaving him outside on the ledge for the whole period! Whether it's apocryphal or not, it captures something of her creativity and charm.

3. Dr Geoff Williams
Sydney University
I first met Geoff (and he was, I think, the first teacher whom I knew on a first name basis) in a second year English course called Grammar and Discourse, in which he opened my eyes to the nuts and bolts of how language works via systemic functional grammar. We were looking at language so closely that I ended up writing my essay for the course on the opening of a Beckett play and ran out of space after I had discussed the first ten words! This was probably one of the best two or three classes throughout my Arts degree, which I initially selected on timetable convenience and on the casual recommendation of an acquaintance.

However, it was Geoff's personal care for each student in a large class that really grabbed my attention. He quickly knew everyone's name (rare in a lecturer, particularly in a class of around 50 or 60) and took all of his own tutorials. He worked hard to provide excellent examples of the language patterns we were studying and simultaneously introduced me to his second field of expertise: children's literature. When I ended up writing an English honours thesis comparing Harry Potter and Narnia, he became my surrogate supervisor (my official supervisor, based on my initial submission, was a modernist specialist (momentum from Prufrock!) and was humble enough to acknowledge himself out of his depth when my topic shifted).

Years later, his invitation to help teach a modified form of the grammar course (which had become immensely popular and so they didn't have enough tutors) rescued my battered passion for teaching after a year in the deep end as a high school teacher without training or experience. He continued to follow my progress for many years after university and we would regularly catch up for coffee, until he recently accepted an exciting post in Canada. I must write to him again soon.

4. Rev Dr Andrew Cameron
Moore Theological College
Amongst many gifted teachers at Moore, Andrew's gentleness, humility and deep insight were a bastion of sanity and humanity in a hectic and demanding environment. When he first taught me Philosophy 1, he was under the mistaken impression that I had a PhD in Philosophy, which led to some extra stress for him (since his specialty is Ethics, not Philosophy) and some unearned cred for me! Since then, I have been in a number of his classes and have thoroughly enjoyed them all. I also always appreciate his social issues briefings, which come out every "few" weeks.

In class, the wisdom and depth of his material was often veiled behind a lack of confidence and somewhat bumpy presentation, but there were so many gems that have formed me both academically and spiritually. Obviously, his love of ethics and Oliver O'Donovan in particular (see image)* have been very significant in shaping my own future direction.
*This is a picture of Andrew Cameron and Oliver O'Donovan. Andrew is wearing a shirt that our class made for him, which bears a portrait of OO'D with the caption "What would O'Donovan do?".

5. Rev Andrew Katay
St Barnabas' Anglican Church, Broadway
Many preachers and Bible study leaders have shaped me in a variety of related (and sometimes competing) traditions, but it is probably my years with Andrew Katay that have most significantly shaped my faith in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, my love of the holy scriptures and the gospel they proclaim (especially in the Gospels) and my hope in God's coming kingdom.

I met Andrew at my first SUEU event back in 1997 and worked closely with him for most of the five years I spent at Sydney Uni, in a variety of formal and informal contexts. Then, when Jessica and I were married and joined St Barnabas', Broadway, he was our pastor for another four and a half years (there is about eighteen months' overlap between these two periods) and for the final two years, he was also the immediate supervisor of my service as a catechist (student minister). During that time, I have listened to probably hundreds of his talks, sermons, studies, seminars and debates, and have spent hundreds of hours with him in committees, planning meetings, reading groups and casual conversations.

Although we chronically disagree in some areas (politics!), he helped me notice and begin to overcome many of the inherited dualisms in my theology, sharing a faith that is bigger and deeper than "Jesus saves": trinitarian in basis, christological in focus, cosmic in scope, graciously ethical in direction, generous in difference and with a resurrection hope.

-----

None of these teachers is without faults, but my prayer is to become a little more like the best in each of them.

Who have been significant teachers in your life? If you can't think of five, start with one. If you have a blog, consider yourself tagged. When you post, include a link in the comments here.

Cooking or eating?

Are sermons more about learning how to cook or about eating a good meal? Ought preachers show their exegetical work to teach the congregation how to read the Scriptures or should the hard work happen beforehand so that the message is applied to the lives of the hearers? A good discussion on the issue has begun over on Justin's blog.

More links

Jason reflects on the cross and atonement: on penal substitution.

Michael questions the value of future pastors and teachers learning Hebrew and Greek.

Grief and love (Book tag)

Benjamin tagged me in a game with the following rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five other people.

Here is my quote, see if you can guess the author:

"The person who mourns deeply has loved greatly. The person who cannot mourn has never loved. It is true that at the present time and in our present culture we are so conditioned that we want to have happiness without pain, and love without grief. We flee the grief and seek a painless happiness. What is on offer in modern society, culturally and medically, is designed to meet this personal wish. But if it is true that mourning is not the farewell to love but love's reverse side, then we can explore the mystery of mourning without fear, and surrender ourselves to mourning without being afraid of losing ourselves."

I included a few extra sentences at the start so that it made more sense, but I think it is quite a typical quote from this author, who is no stranger to this blog.

Having enjoyed that so much, I thought I'd try it again with the second closest book at hand. Again, I scored a very typical point from a much imitated and much parodied author.

"All this leads in conclusion to the area that, it seems to me, is just as vital a part of the contemporary christological task as learning to speak truly about the earthly Jesus and his sense of vocation. We must learn to speak biblically, in the light of this Jesus, about the identity of the one true God. There can be no more central task within our learning to follow Jesus and to transform our world with his gospel."

I was then about to try it with the third closest book, the Concise OED, but it came out at the entry on "behave", so I thought I'd better get back to work.

I tag Justin, Rory, Rev Sam, Meredith and æ (and you, if you feel like it).
Twelve points for the first to correctly guess either of the authors; twenty if you can pick the book.

Lewis on desire

"If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

"We must not be troubled by unbelievers when they say that this promise of reward makes the Christian life a mercenary affair. There are different kinds of reward. There is the reward which has no natural connexion with the things you do to earn it, and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it. A general who fights well in order to get a peerage is mercenary; a general who fights for victory is not, victory being the proper reward of battle as marriage is the proper reward of love. The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation. There is also a third case, which is more complicated. An enjoyment of Greek poetry is certainly a proper, and not a mercenary, reward for learning Greek; but only those who have reached the stage of enjoying Greek poetry can tell from their own experience that this is so. The schoolboy beginning Greek grammar cannot look forward to his adult enjoyment of Sophocles as a lover looks forward to marriage or a general to victory. He has to begin by working for marks, or to escape punishment, or to please his parents, or, at best, in the hope of a future good which he cannot at present imagine or desire. His position, therefore, bears a certain resemblance to that of the mercenary; the reward he is going to get will, in actual fact, be a natural or proper reward, but he will not know that till he has got it. Of course, he gets it gradually; enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery, and nobody could point to a day or an hour when the one ceased and the other began. But it is just in so far as he approaches the reward that he becomes able to desire it for its own sake; indeed, the power of so desiring it is itself a preliminary reward."

- C. S. Lewis, opening lines of The Weight of Glory, a sermon.

I posted this in response to this post by Michael Jensen. Eight points for guessing the country in the image.

Hart on learning to see

Sometimes we don't see what's under our noses. Sometimes we see but do not perceive. Having one's eyes open and head pointed in the right direction is no guarantee of correct vision. Hart makes an excellent point about the labour of vision that is required in order to see straight in a world bent out of shape:

[A]ll of nature is a shattered mirror of divine beauty, still full of light, but riven by darkness. ... [T]o see the goodness indwelling all creation requires a labour of vision that only faith in Easter can sustain; but it is there, effulgent, unfading, innocent, but languishing in bondage to corruption, groaning in anticipation of a glory yet to be revealed, both a promise of the Kingdom yet to come and a portent of its beauty.

- David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea:
Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Eerdmans: 2005), 102-3.

Learning to see creation rather than merely 'nature' does not mean closing our eyes to the pain all around (and within). Instead, it is to look thankfully not fearfully, seeing abundance rather than scarcity. It is to look caringly rather than instrumentally, seeing beauty before usefulness. It is to look hopefully, seeking glimpses of the glory yet to be revealed.

O'Donovan on revising tradition

No element formed by tradition can claim absolute allegiance. But the right to revise traditions is not everybody's right; it has to be won by learning their moral truths as deeply as they can be learned. Those who have difficult vocations to explore need the tradition to help the exploration. The tradition may not have the final word; but it is certain they will never find the final word if they have failed to profit from the words the tradition offers. And if it should really be the case that they are summoned to witness on some terra incognita of "new" experience, it will be all the more important that their new discernments should have been reached on the basis of a deep appropriation of old ones, searching for and exploiting the analogies they offer. No one who has not learned to be traditional can dare to innovate.

- Oliver O'Donovan, Good News for Gay Christians: Sermons on the Subjects of the Day (7), §7.

Hart on learning from atheists

"[S]ometimes atheism seems to retain elements of 'Christianity' within itself that Christians have all too frequently forgotten."

- David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Eerdmans: 2005), 25.

Have you noticed this? Can you think of any examples?

Augustine on love and fear

He, then, is an enemy to righteousness who refrains from sin only through fear of punishment; but he will become the friend of righteousness if through love of it he avoids sin, for then he will be really afraid of sin. For the person who only fears the flames of hell is afraid not of sinning but of burning...

Augustine, Epistulae 145.4

Augustine argues that fear of punishment is only ever a first step in moral learning. Although a young child may refrain from hitting his brother because he fears a spanking,* there is a step forward when he fears disappointing his parents, and then another step when he fears hurting his brother. Also involved in the maturation process is coming to fear both the damage done to oneself and the affront to God when one wrongs a neighbour. To be a friend of righteousness is to hate evil because it is evil, not simply because God will judge the evildoer.

*More discussion of spanking here and here.