It's just possible

I ramble a good bit on this blog about transformation and the Christian life. Sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness...but today there's a good post on Jesus Creed that you should read. Here's a snippet to whet your appetite (yes, whet, not wet! look it up.)

Evangelical brands of Christianity in the west have too often espoused only a “change when I die” eschatology/soteriology. This doesn’t mean they are “bad” Christians. It simply means they have not yet developed the imagination, nor received any substantive teaching, regarding how to begin living the kinds of lives that people like Abraham, Moses, David, Ezekiel, Daniel, Mary, John the Baptist, or Paul, lived in and through the power of God while on earth. This is a result of modern evangelicalism having never developed a stomach (much less a budget) for discipleship as the PRIMARY objective of the church. Instead, most Christians today fully expect to become their perfect/perfected selves only after leaving earth and entering the eternal (eschatological) character reformation project in heaven. This is a widely held belief that unconsciously demotivated us from pursuing any sustained commitment to the intentional efforts involved in character transformation. Just like the rapture theology caused many conservative evangelicals to forsake responsible stewardship of the earth, so too a “change when I die” dogma stalls any move toward holiness.

<idle musing>
Amen! You can't hope to attain to something you don't believe is possible! If you think you're a sinner, you will act like a sinner! If you know you're a saint, you will begin to act like a saint...
</idle musing>