#598 (8/2) "Carlos Danger and Cheap Grace"

REMINDER: Check out this past week's "Truth That Transforms  broadcast at www.truthinaction.org. This week's broadcast is about believing God to do great things through each of us. Inspiring talk.  Don’t miss it

PRAISES AND PRAYER REQUESTS:

PRAISE! - "North Carolina Governor Signs New Pro-Life Legislation into Law"- 7/30/2013;  http://www.presidentialprayerteam.com/Prayerwatch?pw=1706

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed pro-life legislation into law late Monday requiring abortion clinics to comply with basic medical standards used in outpatient surgical clinics...Court action is certain to follow challenging the law. Considering abortion is a surgical procedure, holding abortion clinics to the same standards as surgical clinics is nothing extreme. Not to mention, nearly half of the states in the country now have this requirement. On the national level, Florida Senator Marco Rubio is preparing to introduce legislation in the U.S. Senate limiting abortions to five months of pregnancy. (Sources: New York Times, TownHall) As the Lord leads, please pray:

• For the courage and integrity of more state legislatures to take pro-life positions.
• About the sanctity of life issues in America.
• For the national legislative attempts that will be introduced by Senator Marco Rubio.

ATTENTION: TODAY is the 25th day of the 30 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (see link below for resource material you can download.) Please join me in focusing your prayers EVERY DAY for these over one billion people who need to hear the gospel of Jesus.[NOTE: 1) You can download a  page of helpful basic information about Islam and Ramadan at: http://www.opendoorsusa.org/downloads/pdf-downloads/Islam_reference_guide-1.pdf ; and 2) The following is from a 30-day prayer guide you can download at: http://www.opendoorsusa.org/downloads/pdf-downloads/2013-ramadan-prayer-calendar-1.pdf (The following is from that prayer guide.August 2 – 25^th Day of Ramadan - REDEEMER (Mauritania) “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.” (Job 19:25) Mauritania, an isolated desert country under military rule for over 30 years, is one of the world’s poorest countries. One third of the children are malnourished. Only 4% of the land is arable. In early July 2011, prominent Imams requested that the Mauritanian parliament protect the Mauritanian people from hearing the gospel and reject every Christian organization and curtail sharing the gospel in Mauritania. Pray for Jesus, the Redeemer, to rescue Mauritania during Ramadan from the grip of spiritual darkness.

 "Angry Islamists Turn Wrath on Egypt's Christians,"  By George Thomas, CBN News Sr. Reporter http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2013/July/Angry-Islamists-Turn-Wrath-on-Egypts-Christians/  Friday, July 12, 201 - "Egyptian Christians are facing growing retaliation by angry Islamists for opposing ousted President Moham3med Morsi. His supporters say Christian leaders were behind his removal from office....On Thursday, the body of a Christian merchant was found decapitated in a cemetery. Last Saturday, a Coptic Christian priest was shot by gunmen in an outdoor market. Also, days after the military coup that removed Morsi from office, Muslim extremists in southern Egypt burned dozens of Christian homes and stabbed four believers to death. "It's part of the Brotherhood's mobilization that they are targeting Christians, that they are renouncing them as behind this. If the Brotherhood is able to portray what happened as a Christian-dominated or Christian-driven protest, then they get to gain massive support in the streets," Tadros explained.PRAY for the nation of Egypt, as it faces a crucial  moment, 1) that the recent events would result in its becoming a true democracy and NOT an Islamic state; 2)  that the peoples' freedoms, in particular the religious freedom of its minorities (specifically its oppressed Christians) would be protected; 3) for peace and stability to return; 4) that the U.S. will effectively reach out to the new government, and 3) for safety for Americans living in Egypt  

"American Pastor Saeed: 300 Illegal Days in an Iranian Prison,"  - by Jordan Sekulow, July 23, 2013 http://aclj.org/iran/american-pastor-saeed-300-illegal-days-iranian-prison ''Today [7/23] is the 300th day of American Pastor Saeed Abedini’s illegal imprisonment in Iran – 300 days away from his wife and kids, 300 days of torment for his Christian faith, 300 days and counting...Pastor Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh Abedini, responded to this positive step:"Thank you to all of the individuals who have prayed, written letters, signed petitions, called government officials, run benefit races, tweeted, and shared Saeed’s story. Thank you to all the government officials from around the world who have stood for my husband.  Iran has listened to your pleas.  While I am encouraged that Saeed is finally getting medical care, the fight is not yet over.  It has been a difficult 300 days – 300 days of torment simply because Saeed loves Jesus Christ.  I am hopeful Iran will do the just and honorable thing and release Saeed.'' ...We continue to work in this country and in the international community to secure Pastor Saeed’s freedom.  And more than 600,000 people around the world now stand in solidarity with Pastor Saeed at SaveSaeed.org. [ I urge you to pray DAILY for this courageous brother in Christ and his family and the hundreds of thousands of other Christians worldwide suffering persecution for their faith. - Stan] 

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"Carlos Danger and Cheap Grace - No Road to Respectability," -  by Eric Metaxas|Breakpoint.org,July 31,2013; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-archive/entry/13/22967?spMailingID=6654957&spUserID=MTMyMjM2ODE5OQS2&spJobID=80930388&spReportId=ODA5MzAzODgS1

How is it that disgraced politicians keep popping back into public life without too much trouble? As I record this, former congressman Anthony Weiner is staying in the race for mayor of New York. In case you forgot, he’s the one who resigned in 2011 after sexually suggestive tweets he sent to virtual strangers became public. He’s staying in the race, despite reports of serial sexting under the nom de thumb“Carlos Danger.” He joins disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer, who is running for comptroller, on the ballot.

It isn’t only New York: recently, South Carolina voters returned Mark Sanford, who ruined the phrase “hiking the Appalachian Trail” for the rest of us, to Congress. These and other instances of politicians “falling from grace” and then being restored to a measure of respectability, are usually explained by the statement “Americans are a forgiving lot.”

As a Christian, I am all for forgiveness, as I’m sure you are. But what’s on display in these instances isn’t so much an example of forgiveness as it is of “cheap grace.”

That’s how David French put it at National Review. The expression “cheap grace” comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship.” “Cheap grace,” Bonhoeffer wrote, “is the grace we bestow on ourselves [and] the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance.” Ultimately, it is “grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

As French pointed out, “the pattern is familiar and depressing: Public stumble, public apology, public rebirth—and then the next public stumble follows with depressing frequency.” Some politicians “opt out of scandal” by “marrying their mistresses and prancing in front of cameras with their latest adoring spouse,” but the end result is the same: a parody of forgiveness and grace that makes the real thing increasingly unrecognizable.

I agree with French that the allure of “cheap grace” is easy to understand. “We want to close the worst chapters of our lives as quickly as possible and just get on with living on the same trajectory as before, minus the embarrassment.”

But grace and true forgiveness are supposed to alter the trajectory of our lives, not preserve it. They are supposed to make us better as well as wiser.

How this might happen is illustrated in the story of John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War. In 1963, Profumo was at the center of a huge sex-and-spies scandal that eventually brought down Britain’s conservative government. Profumo resigned “disgraced and stripped of all public dignities.” Yet when he died in 2006, the Telegraph wrote “few ended their lives as loved and revered by those who knew him.” That’s because, as Peggy Noonan recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, Profumo “did the hardest thing for a political figure. He really went away.” “He didn’t give interviews, never wrote a book, didn’t go on TV.” Instead, he spent the next forty years working at “a rundown settlement house called Toynbee Hall in the East End of London.” Really working. He washed dishes and cleaned toilets. In a 2003 interview, in response to the question “what have you learnt from this place?” he replied, “humility.”

And that’s precisely what is missing in our culture of public confession and cheap grace. Profumo “got it;” he demonstrated remorse and died “loved and revered.” You might remember another famous, disgraced public figure who got it: Chuck Colson. After his fall from power during Watergate and a stint in prison, Colson spent the rest of his life ministering to “the least, the last, and the lost.”

By embracing repentance and humility, Profumo and Colson experienced true grace: A grace that God makes available to each and every one of us.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION

Carlos Danger and Cheap Grace: No Road to Respectability - Next Steps

How about you? Have there been times that you’ve embraced “cheap grace” in your life? Or have you experienced true grace through repentance? Be aware of the difference—one leads back to “life as usual,” the other leads to a truly transformed life.

For more on this subject, read Bonhoeffer’s book “The Cost of Discipleship” or Chuck Colson’s story in “Born Again.” And check out the other resources linked below.

ARTICLES:

‘Carlos Danger’ and the High Cost of Cheap Grace David French | National Review | July 24, 2013;http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/354337/carlos-danger-and-high-cost-cheap-grace-david-french "...There is no politician so brilliant, so captivating, and so charismatic that we needthem in our lives even in spite of their scandal and shame. Sure, some may go on to do fine work even as their personal lives fall apart, but do we need them?...We do, however, need examples of repentance. In other words we don’t need their “public service” — the name politicans give to their quest for power — but we do need the true public service of humility, honorable living, and redemptive suffering. We need the Cross and the sanctification that follows its embrace, but even in the absence of that vital spiritual transformation, simple humility would be a vast improvement. Go away, Anthony Weiner. Go away and do some good. The people of New York will survive without your leadership.''

How to Find Grace After Disgrace - Peggy Noonan | Wall Street Journal | July 13, 2013 (may require online subscription)

BOOKS:
The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer | Touchstone | September 1995Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy - Eric Metaxas | Thomas Nelson Publishers | August 2011
Born Again - Chuck Colson | Chosen Books | January 1976