The Struggle to Love

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By David Gushee on August 3, 2009 ,

The Struggle to Love

If God is really in us in the form of the Holy Spirit, shouldn’t it be easy to love one another?

There are two ways to approach this question. One would be to focus on the issue of love. The other would be to ask why it takes so much effort to live out any Christian moral obligation, whether love, or sexual fidelity, or economic generosity, or racial justice. Let’s place the question within a broad­er issue— historic Christian thinking about sanctification.

The most pessimistic stance, attributed to some strains of Lutheranism, is that the New Testament promises simply that God-declares believers righteous on account of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-26). In this view, our sinful condi­tion is so profound that little if any actual moral progress can be expected in this life—indeed, the effort to make such progress actually draws us away from a trusting faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice on our behalf. . . .

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David Gushee

Professor

David Gushee, Professor, (PhD, Union Theological Seminary, New York) is an ethicist, pastor, author, and advocate. He is the Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, and Chair of Christian Social Ethics at Vrije Universiteit (“Free University”) Amsterdam/IBTS. Gushee is the elected Past-President of both the American Academy of Religion and Society of Christian Ethics. He is author, coauthor, editor, or coeditor of more than 25 books and over 175 academic book chapters, journal articles, and reviews. His most recognized works include Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, Kingdom Ethics and The Sacredness of Human Life. Over a full 28-year career, he’s been a devoted teacher and mentor as Professor Gushee to college students, seminarians, and PhD students.

 

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