Cheap Grace

Oh, if I could release the thoughts that, like butterflies, scatter through my mind.  They are difficult to coral and share. Some of them concern a movie I viewed last Sunday.  Not to be presumptuous, but I am coming to feel an affinity with the oracles of the Living Gods. Many have descended from Mount Sinai, having conversed with the Gods, only to see the people worshipping the golden calf. It was Angel Studio's "Bonhoeffer." Afterward, I went for a long drive through Bear Lake to review Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Cost Of Discipleship on my audible recording."

I pray God would offer me the words to express my love for my wife and children as I desire to lead them to Christ.

""Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves . . . the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship. . . . 

"Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought, again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. . . . 

"It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."— The Cost of Discipleship* 

Dietrich starts his treatise speaking on the Catholic faith and the practice of monasticism.  Being not of the Catholic or Lutheran faith tradition, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of Monasticism.

I have come to understand that monasticism comes in a cycle. A man would traditionally move to a desert or isolated place to come closer to God. As his spirituality increases, he gathers acolytes. These converts then create commerce and increase the wealth of the community. This wealth then decreases the community's spirituality, leading to the need to found a new monastery. I compare this to the Book of Mormon pride cycle.

This may be the cost of grace Bonhoeffer speaks of in the first chapters of his book. The early converts make great sacrifices to be in the monk's presence. It is these sacrifices that generate spiritual strength. Increasing wealth decreases the need to sacrifice, leading to reduced spirituality. This creates the need to find a new monastery to start the sacrifice cycle anew.

I have sometimes expressed the desire to be a monk, to be left to my books, and to have someone occasionally slide food under my door.   But then I am reminded that Luther was a monk God forced out of the abbey, who then founded the Lutheran Church, and that Bonhoeffer was of the Lutheran faith. His theology may have developed in a Lutheran Seminary, but his Christianity was developed in the streets of Harlem when he interacted with the black church in America. 

My wife has sometimes forced me out of my isolating habits. When I was first married, I spent far too much time in the basement with my computer. She soon forbade me to have a computer in the house for at least a decade. So, I understand the drive toward seclusion and self-contemplation. 

After spending four decades seeking to attract my family and friends to Christ, I understand expensive grace.  

I know that Bonhoeffer was a committed pacifist who left his theological cloister seeking to rescue the German church from the Nazi regime.  He participated in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was martyred in a concentration camp,  

How do I pay for Costly Grace and lead others to desire Costly Grace?

This may be why my faith community practices tithing and fast offerings. Voluntarily decreasing one's wealth leads to a continual need to sacrifice individually, thus generating spiritual wealth.

Maybe a partial solution is a personal commitment to paying an honest tithe and offering.