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Transforming Power of Grace Thomas Oden

  The Transforming Power of Grace: Oden, Wesley, and the Life of the Spirit From Month Four, Day 2 of my book of prayers,  Daily Conversations with God,  I offer this prayer: Lord, you are a merciful God. I confess that holiness is far easier to say than it is to do.  ·        My words are pious, but often mask attitudes of intolerance and judgment.  ·        My concern for others is too often shallow, swallowed up by my own self-interest.  ·        I too often resort to platitudes of compassion and care rather than modify my behavior to embrace those who are different or unlovely.  This is not holiness. I confess my failure to you. I confess that I need your grace to see me truly and the games I play. I need your power to change my attitudes and actions. Ignite within me the passion and audacity to be a holy disciple of Jesus Christ amid a world of sound bites an...
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David Bentley Hart That All Shall Be Saved

  That All Shall Be Saved (Yale University Pr: New Haven, CT, 2019)— A Summary and Review David Bentley Hart's argument, when you strip away the polemics, is fairly simple: if Christianity is coherent at all, universalism is the only version of it that can be. Not a hopeful add-on, not a pious wish — the only logically stable position. Everything else in the book is Hart working out the implications of that claim across scripture, philosophy, and the history of doctrine. He starts with the moral problem, and it's the part of the book I keep coming back to. Borrowing William James's thought experiment — would you accept a utopia bought at the price of one soul's eternal torture — Hart says no coherent Christian ethics can take that deal, whether the soul in question is Hitler or an unbaptized infant. Historically, he points out, the church's answer has usually included the infant. He insists that anyone who claims to fully believe in eternal hell while also loving th...
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