11/06/03

To the Editor, the Wesleyan Christian Advocate.

Greetings in Christ!

For sometime I have been musing about a very brief encapsulation of the universal appeal of the Christian faith. I think this will become increasingly valuable (if and when perfected) as we have to deal with other religions in the workplace and on the street. I think I am making some progress and offer the following specimen as a letter which might be valuable to some of the many United Methodists in the two conferences of your service. The letter follows:


We will occasionally hear from people of diverse faiths (including some Christians) that the only thing that will delight God is obedience to his commands, and that he commands what he will. And we can contribute to a discussion by saying something like this:

God is only delighted when people actually love the Golden Rule and indeed naturally. But this is contrary to our human nature. And so there is no way that we can come on our own to such a new nature. And so there is no way that we can delight God. This is the way things are; this is the law.

But come now the Gospel! Even though we are never able in our own strength to come to love the Golden Rule as a nature, if we will but believe that God wants to delight in us, which he only can or will do if we have this perfection, then God will work a miracle in our lives such that we will actually and eventually come to love in this way and some of us will even have evidence of a progressive change in our lives in that direction (if we happen to live long enough). It is by virtue of this belief that we can open ourselves actively and expectantly to this help of God. This help is the Holy Spirit, and who will or can only enter into receptive and expectant hearts, but then with power

In order to convince ourselves to seek this help in order to come to this love (and this sort of love must be counted as foolishness in the eyes of the world), we must be assured of two things, namely that God does indeed promise such help and indeed to me (and everyone) personally, and secondly that this promise is efficacious. These two things are provided in the death of Jesus for Barabbas (the unsuspecting convict) and in his miraculous resurrection from this death. Thus we accept this promise of help on faith, and this is called salvation and belief in eternal life; and then, if we are blessed with longer life, we actually come to experience the progressive perfection in love that is underway and being manifested in our lives, and this is called awareness of eternal life.

"O Lord, haste the day when our faith will be sight!"

Philip McPherson Rudisill