Christianity Today

Pick Holiness

Will Willimon is a retired bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church and professor of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School.

While we always need grace—grace defined by us Methodists as the gratuitous power of God to enable us to live transformed lives for God—Americans today are in desperate need of the disciplines of holiness. As a pastor, I know firsthand the morally chaotic, sadly devastated lives of those who thought it was possible to be good without God. The wreckage and superficiality of undisciplined lives surround us—and I'm not just talking about Donald Trump.

We Wesleyans believe that holiness is evidence of grace working in us. Too often, popular evangelical Christianity has stressed grace as what God in Christ has done for us; holiness churches stress grace as what God is daily doing in us and through us. Holiness is a name for what happens to us when a powerful, life-changing God commandeers our lives.

Grace is more than some benign, sweet syrup poured over us by a God who only says, "I love you just as you are; promise me you won't change a thing." Holiness of heart and life demonstrates to the world that Christ is able to not only love us as we are but also change us into what he would have us be. Holiness is Christ not only forgiving our sin but also redeeming us and utilizing us for his work in the world.

In other words, holiness is God's grace in action, enlisting us to work for God's will in the world.

Holiness gives us the courage to be in but not of the world. Flaccid Christians reduce Christianity to a personal feeling and are thereby left defenseless against the lures of American consumerist, militarist paganism. Holiness graces us with that which we do not naturally have—the ability to say, "No!"

The Christian faith is too demanding for lone individuals who only practice the faith's requirements when they feel like it; community commitment is essential. I'm encouraged that some, especially young adults, recognize this today: There has been an outbreak of holiness groups on college campuses—small cells of Christian students who covenant to routinely practice the same five or six disciplines (prayer, confession, Scripture study, and others).

Some of my neo-Calvinist and crypto-Calvinist friends are suspicious of this Wesleyan talk of moral, spiritual transformation. Is it really possible for sinners, even saved ones, to grow morally and spiritually while we inhabit sinful bodies? I grew up in South Carolina in the segregated South of Strom Thurmond and George Wallace. I know the pervasiveness and unavoidability of personal and social sin firsthand. True, even after 60 years of God's work on me and in me, I lack a fully sanctified life. Even so, I can see the fruits of sanctification and holiness practice in my life. Trust me: You wouldn't have wanted to know me before the grace of God commandeered me and made me more holy than if I had been left to my own devices.

Always Amazing: Grace

Halee Gray Scott is a professor and author who studies spiritual development and moral formation. Her book Brave New Women: A Survival Guide for Christian Women Leaders is due out next spring.

We need grace to see the need for holiness, and grace to desire holiness. Without grace, we get legalism, Christianity-by-rote—hardly worth anything, much less something that can change the world. Without holiness, we get the cheap grace Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke of: "grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."

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