Saturday, December 02, 2017

Why You Should Let Go of ‘Let Go and Let God’


Laziness is a familiar vice. Given the option, most of us prefer the quick and easy way to the slow and hard. Bodily health? Temperance and exercise are too burdensome; just give us a pill. Auto maintenance? Why pay for transmission flushes or tire rotations when you can just buy a cheap fuel additive? Test prep? Why build regular study habits when you can cram the night before? Until human nature changes, there will always be a market for snake-oil salesmen peddling a quick fix.

But what about sanctification?

Given human nature, it’s worth asking whether there’s a quick fix on the market—some version of “How to Become Holy in 3 Easy Steps” that’s much less strenuous than what Eugene Peterson (using an original phrase from Friedrich Nietzsche) called a “long obedience in the same direction.” According to Andy Naselli, there is. It’s called “higher life theology,” and he spends about 100 pages critiquing it in his new book, No Quick Fix: Where Higher Life Theology Came From, What It Is, and Why It’s Harmful. Read More

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