The Second Stream
The Holiness Tradition: Discovering the Virtuous Life
I always considered “holiness” the idea of doing all the right stuff. Churches that focus on “holiness” are often apparent in there overtly modest clothing. I remember a holiness church group that had a youth camp, and they required boys and girls to swim in separate swimming pools. The idea of true holiness cannot be better described than in the words of Richard Foster:
[photopress:streamsbookpicture.jpg,full,alignleft]Holiness is not rules and regulations. Elaborate lists of dos and don’ts miss the point of a life hidden with God in Christ. No single standard of behavior is dictated by the word holy. All external legalisms fail to capture the heart of holy living and holy dying.
Holiness is sustained attention to the heart, the source of all action. It concerns itself with the core of the personality, the well-spring of behavior, the quintessence of the soul. It focuses upon the formation and transformation of this center.
Holiness is not otherworldliness. Its life is not found by developing logic-tight compartmentws of things sacred and things secular. We do not come into it by studiously avoiding contact with our manifestly evil and broken world.
[Get ready for this…]
Holiness is world-affirming. The holy life is found smack in the middle of everyday life. We discover it while being freely and joyfully in the world without ever being of the world. Holiness sees the sacred in all things. (page 83)
Christianity isn’t about getting everything just right. God doesn’t expect us to be perfect. He just expects us to run towards him in our everday lives. This video says it perfectly.
Hmm. Something to think on. Thanks, man.
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Thanks so much for the article. Awesome.