In this week’s episode of the Theology for the People podcast, I speak with Dominic Done. We talk about what the Bible means when it talks about the “soul,” and what God’s vision is for how your soul can flourish.
Dominic is a pastor and author based out of Colorado Springs, where he leads a ministry called Pursuing Faith.
Dominic has served as Professor of Applied Theology at George Fox University, lead pastor of Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland, Oregon. He has a Master’s Degree in Theology from the University of Oxford and is currently working on his PhD at the University of Oxford under Alister McGrath.
For more information about the Calvary Global Network (CGN) conference taking place in Costa Mesa, CA from June 26-29, at which Dominic will be speaking, visit conference.calvarychapel.com
If you find this episode interesting or helpful, please share it with others and leave a rating and review on your podcast app, as that helps other people discover this podcast and its content.
Dominic Done is a pastor and author based out of Colorado Springs, where he leads a ministry called Pursuing Faith.
Dominic has served as Professor of Applied Theology at George Fox University, lead pastor of Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland, Oregon. He has a Master’s Degree in Theology from the University of Oxford and is currently working on his PhD at the University of Oxford under Alister McGrath.
He has written two books. His first book, When Faith Fails: Finding God in the Shadow of Doubt, addresses the topics of doubt and deconstruction. His latest book, Your Longing Has a Name: Come Alive to the Story You Were Made For, was just released this year.
Dominic was recently a guest on Unbelievable? in which he debated with an atheist philosopher on the origin of virtues.
For more information about the Calvary Global Network (CGN) conference taking place in Costa Mesa, CA from June 26-29, at which Dominic will be speaking, visit conference.calvarychapel.com
In response to that episode, we received a few follow-up questions.
Conor and I sat down to discuss some of these more nuanced points on the topic of fasting. You can hear the recording of our conversation here (or in the embedded player below), but here is one of the questions we received:
If someone has an eating disorder, can they still fast?
First of all, if you suspect you may be struggling with an eating disorder and need someone to talk to, please contact the Eating Disorders Helpline, where you can chat, call, or text with someone who can help.
Eating disorders are serious but treatable mental and physical illnesses that can affect people of all genders, ages, races, religions, ethnicities, sexual orientations, body shapes, and weights. National surveys estimate that 20 million women and 10 million men in America will have an eating disorder at some point in their lives.
Eating disorders are serious, potentially life threatening conditions that can affect every organ system in the body. They are not fads or phases, and can have serious consequences for health, productivity, and relationships.
Please seek help if you or someone you care about is struggling in this area.
Can someone who has struggled with eating disorders participate in fasting?
Nick: I think that’s a really good question. What if your church is doing an all-church fast? Should we tell those who have a history of eating disorders, “Sorry, you can’t participate in this spiritual exercise and in the graces that might come through it”?
Conor: This is a very serious topic and it would be honest to say that it’s probably happening more in our own churches than we realize – whether it’s anorexia nervosa, or bulimia, because it’s often shrouded in secrecy by the person dealing with it.
Eating disorders tend to be connected with a feeling of shame concerning body image, or identity. It is definitely a heavy subject that is applicable to the subject of fasting because we’re talking about food.
What I would suggest is that we should seek to always have a healthy relationship between congregation and pastor, and an understanding of the Imago Dei, which means that we are created in the image of God. It is important to understand that our bodies were created by God and he declared them to be good, and therefore God sees you as his beautiful creation, who has so much value.
Recommendations
Conor: If someone were to come into my office after I gave a call to corporate fasting, and said, “Hey, I’m dealing with this now,” or maybe “I’ve dealt with this in the past,” and “I have an apprehension about moving into an activity of fasting,” of course I would always suggest that they talk to a medical professional first.
If a medical professional gives the go ahead, then, because of the fact that anorexia and bulimia have their foundation in shame and secrecy, I would suggest that we follow the practical structure that we set up in our last episode, of taking 25 hours (I really wouldn’t want to prescribe a fast longer than that, at least for my congregation, of sundown to sundown). And, I would suggest this person try this, not on their own, but in participation with another person.
In this way, it’s not you fasting alone, but a 25 hour intimate participation with that other person in prayer and constant conversation about the Lord, which will be a real opportunity for growth for both parties, in which they both have a desperate hunger for God, and are willing to do this together.
Finally, I would insist on participation in the culmination, or breaking of the fast, by moving into a time of feasting and thankfulness for the grace of God and what he has provided, after sundown.
So, if all of that is acceptable to the person, and they say, “Yes, I want to do this,” then I believe the grace of God is going to come into the parties’ participation together, corporately.
I wouldn’t prescribe this to a person individually, on their own, if they had a history of an eating disorder.
Nick: Certainly there are diverse histories and varying degrees of eating disorders, so I like the fact that you mention speaking with a physician and encouraging communication. I like that we can talk about the nuances of fasting, and give pastoral answers.
In an upcoming episode, I’m going to be interviewing Mike Neglia on the topic of gluttony, which is the other side of the coin from fasting. So keep an eye out for that.
In this Bonus Episode, Conor Berry and I discuss some questions we received regarding our previous episode on fasting:
Can you fast from things other than food?
What about people who have present or past eating disorders? Can they, or should they fast?
Conor also mentions another resource in this episode on the topic of feasting: The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Capon
If you find this episode interesting or helpful, please share it with others and leave a rating and review on your podcast app, as that helps other people discover this podcast and its content.
Make sure to visit the Theology for the People blog at nickcady.org
In response to that episode, we received a few follow-up questions.
Conor and I sat down to discuss some of these more nuanced points on the topic of fasting. You can hear the recording of our conversation here (or in the embedded player below), but here is one of the questions we received:
Can you fast from things beside food?
Nick: My initial assumption had been that the answer is, Yes – you can probably fast from things other than food. This came from my background growing up with the practice of Lent, where you often hear people say things like, “I’m fasting from chocolate, I’m fasting from Netflix, I’m fasting from, running,” (and then it turns out that they weren’t actually a runner to begin with!).
But now, having looked into it, I’ve actually come to the conclusion that abstaining from things other than food may be a good thing to do, but fasting itself is actually a practice which is specific to abstaining from food for a set period of time.
Conor: Yeah, it’s interesting: We categorize fasting as a spiritual discipline, and when we think of the word discipline, we think of how Paul talks about disciplining my body so that I wouldn’t be under the power or the authority of anything, except the sovereignty of God.
And so we can say, “For the 40 days of Lent, I’m not going to eat chocolate, or I’m going to stay off of social media or Netflix, etc.” Yet, if we say that we only have Scripture as our defining cause for the topic of fasting, Scripture only shows that fasting has to do with not eating food or water for a specific period of time.
Once again, bringing the definition from Scot McKnight, that fasting is the natural response to a grievous or sacred moment, we choose not to eat as a means of inducing hunger. And so, my perspective on this is that to say, “I don’t want to eat chocolate, or I want to put social media aside to focus on God,” while that’s a wonderful thing, I would consider that to be under the category of “abstinence,” but not true, scriptural fasting.
Nick: One verse that comes to mind is in 1 Corinthians 7:5, where it says that a husband and wife should not withhold sex from their spouse, except for a time, for the purpose of prayer and fasting. That’s interesting because it doesn’t say that abstaining from sex is a form of fasting, rather it’s distinct from fasting. It’s not called “fasting from sexual intercourse,” it’s called abstaining from it – so that you can fast and pray.
Conor: I agree with you, it’s distinct from the discipline or act of fasting, but it has great application for our desire for holiness and intimacy with God.
All throughout church history, there have been ascetics, people who have devoted their lives to asceticism in order to find transcendence with God, and the act itself sometimes becomes the identity of the person rather than Christ. People are in awe of their discipline and assume the holiness of the person based upon the act, but that sometimes becomes the person’s identity, and not Christ. So there’s a danger to this as well.
Nick: Do you think there’s something unique about food that makes it the focus of this spiritual discipline?
Conor: Absolutely. Because the experience of food and the enjoyment of feasting is something that we’ve enjoyed even before the fall. When we think of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Lord said, “This whole place is for you and for your pleasure,” so it’s not just for nourishment, it’s also for taste. And food plays an essential role, not only in our vitality and nourishment, but in our pleasure with God. Even taking the two elements of Communion, we’re using effectually food given by God as a means of worship and thankfulness to him. So yeah, food holds a particular significance.
Nick: When it comes to the idea of abstinence, someone might say, “I have. Improper relationship with this thing I’m doing, so I need to abstain from it, maybe for the purpose of breaking the control this habit or this practice has over me.” But with food, although overeating can certainly go to that extent, and that’s what we call gluttony, it’s also possible to have a healthy relationship with food, and it’s the regularity of eating and its necessity for our existence which makes it unique.
Conclusion
So, in summary: there are times when it would be right and good and advisable to abstain from something if you feel like maybe it’s gotten its claws into your heart, and you want to dedicate more time to seeking the Lord – but don’t call it fasting. Call it abstinence or abstaining, and let fasting be fasting.
Conor: I completely agree. In our previous episode, we looked at church history and the different motives people have had for fasting, and one was to individually fight against temptation. Augustine said that it’s good to fast as a means of developing a hunger for God that would be sovereign over the hunger for some of the temptations in your life.
Should you abstain from social media if it becomes an addiction? Absolutely, but I would be so bold as to say that you can abstain from it along with a time of fasting to say, “I’m abstaining against the temptation, and I’m fasting for more of a hunger for God at the same time.”
Stay Tuned for the Next Question: Eating Disorders and Fasting
In my next post, I will share our discussion on the question of whether it is advisable for someone with past or present struggles with eating disorders to participate in the practice of fasting. Are they disqualified from participating in this practice? What advice can we give to people struggling with this question?
In this Bonus Episode, Conor Berry and I discuss some questions we received regarding our previous episode on fasting:
Can you fast from things other than food?
What about people who have present or past eating disorders? Can they, or should they fast?
Conor also mentions another resource in this episode on the topic of feasting: The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Capon
If you find this episode interesting or helpful, please share it with others and leave a rating and review on your podcast app, as that helps other people discover this podcast and its content.
Make sure to visit the Theology for the People blog at nickcady.org
Recently, a listener reached out to me asking if I had any resources on the topic of fasting. I remembered that, several years ago, I had picked up a book from a church book store titled, “A Hunger for God,” thinking that the title sounded like something I would be interested in – but when I got home I took a look at it and realized, much to my dismay, that it was a book about fasting! So, I left it on my bookshelf and never read it… until this week!
It isn’t that I was opposed to fasting. I have, and do, fast occasionally. It’s just that I assumed the book would be a downer, and would basically just tell me that I needed to fast more. Well, this week, in preparation for this episode, I read the whole book in one day, and actually loved it! Here’s a link to the book, if you’re interested in checking it out: A Hunger for God by John Piper
In this episode, Conor and I discuss what the Bible has to say about fasting; what is the purpose of fasting? How does it work? What is the relationship between fasting and prayer, and what is the “reward” of fasting mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 6:16?
We seek to answer these questions with consideration of how Christians throughout history have understood fasting, and finally, Conor gives some practical recommendations for people regarding the duration and regularity of fasting, as well as what to fast from.
And as a bonus, at the end of the episode, we give a recommendation for those looking for a church in Cork, Ireland.
If you find this episode interesting or helpful, please share it with others and leave a rating and review on your podcast app, as that helps other people discover this podcast and its content.
Conor Berry is the Lead Pastor of Calvary Chapel Santa Maria on the Central Coast of California.
In this episode we discuss what the Bible has to say about fasting. What is the purpose of fasting? How does it work? What is the relationship between fasting and prayer, and what is the "reward" of fasting mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 6:16?
We seek to answer these questions with consideration of how Christians throughout history have understood fasting, and by looking at a few modern resources as well.
Books referenced in this episode:
A Hunger for God by John Piper
Fasting by Scot McKnight (Ancient Practices Series)
If you find this episode interesting or helpful, please share it with others and leave a rating and review on your podcast app, as that helps other people discover this podcast and its content.
Make sure to visit the Theology for the People blog at nickcady.org
A friend mine recently walked away from his family and the church he was leading. This friend had graduated from Bible College and had dedicated his life to serving the Lord. Thankfully, his story isn’t over yet.
Here’s the thing about my friend though: as he has made these choices, and as he walking this path which is destructive both to his family and his own soul, he has not ceased believing that the core truths of Christianity are true.
In other words: it is possible to believe the right things, and yet not do the right things.
In 1 Kings 18, we see an example of this with both King Ahab and the people of Israel. They knew what God wanted them to do, yet they didn’t do it. Why not? There were several reasons, including fear and pride, but underlying these things is a question about what you truly love and desire.
Augustine argued that the things which defines a person more than anything else, is not merely what they believe to be true (as important as this certainly is), but what they love and desire. Sin, he explained, can be understood as “disordered love,” and the way to change a person, therefore, is to change what they love.
The good news, is that you can cultivate love and desire for things through the practice of forming habits and doing actions. This is the role of spiritual disciplines in our lives. See: The Role of Habits in Transformation.
In this video, Mike and I discuss this and other ideas related to the importance of desires, not just beliefs, in our spiritual life and walk with God:
In this video we discuss the role of how our desires, not only our beliefs, direct our actions and our lives.
The Bible uses a few terms to describe what a relationship with God looks like, and how it is to work in practice. Some of these terms imply movement, such as walking with God (Genesis 5:22, 6:9, 17:1; Luke 1:5).
There are other terms however, which at first glance appear passive. A further look into these terms reveals that they actually imply action:
Wait on the Lord
The word “wait” conjures up thoughts of waiting at government offices, hospital waiting rooms, or waiting for Christmas to come. All of these are passive actions: you have no control over the outcome, and many times these experiences of waiting sap our energy. Waiting for 2 hours at the DMV can be exhausting, even if you spend the whole time sitting in one place and not moving.
However, to “wait on the Lord” is not a completely passive action. The word “wait” in Hebrew is the word Qavahwhich means “to hope” or “to expect.” It can also be translated “to bind up,” or “gather together.”
While on the one hand, the outcome is out of your control, you are not completely passive nor inactive; you are doing something because you know the God who controls the outcome.
It is in this way that Isaiah the Prophet could say,
“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30-31)
Whereas in many cases waiting can be an exhausting and energy-sapping experience, waiting on the Lord, Isaiah tells us, actually renews your strength and invigorates!
It is in this sense that the Psalm-writer says, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope.” (Psalm 130:5) This is not the waiting of passive inaction, but the hopeful expectation of trusting in God’s word and God’s promises.
Abide in Christ
At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples:
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. (John 15:5,8-9)
To abide means “to remain, to dwell.” In the picture of a vine and its branches, the branch has to merely stay attached to the vine.
Yet, while on the outside it may not appear that there is any movement involved in the branch abiding in the vine, under the surface there is movement of nutrients from one to the other, providing life, health, and growth, which is seen by the fact that this abiding produces something: fruit.
For us to abide in Christ, on the one hand, involves not moving away from Christ, but the actions of abiding are anything but passive. Another definition of abide is to adhere to a pattern of life. Practically speaking, abiding in Christ requires intentional action to pursue fellowship with God.
These intentional actions by which you abide in Christ are also referred to by the term spiritual disciplines, things like prayer, studying the Scriptures, fellowship with other believers, generosity and giving, and more.
In 2 Peter chapter 1, Peter urges the believers to “make every effort” to add to their faith: virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love (2 Peter 1:5), stating that these things help us not to fall, and they help us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)
The outcome may ultimately be the Lord’s work in us, but we are invited to participate in working out what God has worked into us, and we get to participate in cultivating our own spiritual growth.
May we be those who trust in, wait up, and abide in the Lord Jesus, not passively – but actively. May we be those who work out our own salvation, knowing that it is God who works in us to will and do to His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)
In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg talks about something researchers call “keystone habits.”
According to Duhigg, keystone habits are “small changes or habits that people introduce into their routines that unintentionally carry over into other aspects of their lives.”
Like the keystone in an arch, these habits have a synergistic effect that overflows into other areas of your life.
Exercise is a well-known keystone habit. When people start exercising, it has an affect on many other areas of their lives, including patience and productivity.
Having dinner as a family is another keystone habit which has outsized beneficial effects in areas such as children’s emotional control and performance at school. [1]
Keystone Spiritual Habits
What about spiritual habits and disciplines? Are there any keystone habits when it comes to Christianity? There most certainly are, in fact – most of the spiritual disciplines that are taught in the Bible would qualify as keystone habits, which have effects which overflow into other areas of your life.
For example, giving, both in generosity towards others and to support the work of God through the church, is a spiritual discipline. One pastor I know used to explain tithing and financial giving like this:
“Tithing isn’t God’s way of raising money, it’s God’s way of raising kids.”
His point was that when God calls us to give, it’s not because He needs money, but because we need to benefit from the practice of giving away 10% or more of our money.
Giving/tithing/generosity is a keystone habit; it shapes the way you live in other areas of your life. It shapes the way you think about what you possess, and the purpose of your life. Since money is literally effort and time made tangible, you are making a choice to spend your life on things other than yourself: on other people, and on furthering the work of God.
Jesus told us that where your treasure is, your heart will be also. This is true: if you give towards someone or something, you will be much more interested and invested in what happens, rather than if you did not have any skin in the game.
Another pastor explained it like this: when you give, you are making a conscious choice not to let your money or possessions possess you. You are choosing to love people and use money, rather than love money and use people. You are deciding that you will not let money set its claws into your heart.
Prayer
According to an article about these studies in Psychology Today, praying makes you nicer, more forgiving, more trusting, and offsets the negative health effects of stress. Prayer has also been shown to boost self-control.
Bible Reading
In his book, Your Future Self Will Thank You, Drew Dyke cites a study on spiritual growth which surveyed more than 250,000 people in 1,000 churches. Their conclusion was that nothing has a greater impact on spiritual growth than engagement with Scripture. Their research showed that Bible-engagement is the single most spiritually catalytic activity a person can engage in.
Church Attendance
A 2016 Harvard study found that frequent church attendance actually lowers the likelihood of death over a 20 year period 😮. Studies show that churchgoers are less prone to mental illness, report higher levels of happiness, and have better sex lives. Students who attend church regularly have higher GPAs on average and are less likely to live in poverty. [2]
Basically, the Bible has been teaching “keystone habits” since before it was cool. What we have now is a large body of research which explains how and why these practices are so effective in shaping us our lives, leading to greater well-being all around.
May we, by God’s strength that he gives us, apply these habits in our lives, for His glory, and our good.
In Galatians 5:22-23, Paul writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
I would venture to say that all of these fruits are very popular today, with one exception: the last one – “self-control.”
Jesus told his disciples that a tree is known by its fruit, i.e.: the way to identify what kind of “tree” (or person) someone is, is by looking at the outward evidences that their life produces. And self-control made the short-list of evidential fruits.
John Stott on Why Self-Control is Essential to Loving Others
“Why do I say that love is balanced by self-control? Because love is self-giving, and self-giving and self-control are complementary, the one to the other. How can we give ourselves in love until we’ve learned to control ourselves? Our self has to be mastered before it can be offered in the service of others.” – John Stott, “A Vision for Holiness”
Self-Control Requires Some Effort on Our Part
Colossians 1:29 describes human effort and divine power working together: “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he (Jesus) powerfully works within me”
In Philippians 2:12-13, Paul tells us that we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, but then tells us that it is God who works in us to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Drew Dyke, in his book, Your Future Self Will Thank You, describes how God’s power and our effort work together to produce fruit in our lives:
Sanctification is like sailing. Sailors can’t move without the wind, but that doesn’t mean they kick up their feet on the deck and wait to start moving. They’re tying knots, adjusting sails, turning the rudder—all while making sure the boom doesn’t swing across the deck and smack them in the head. Sailing is hardly a passive enterprise—but it’s completely dependent upon the wind. In a similar way, we’re completely dependent on God’s Spirit to make progress. But we’re not passive. Our effort works with God’s power to move us forward.
How to Bring Glory to God
In John 15:8, in the same passage where Jesus tells his disciples that the way to bear fruit is by abiding in Him (and He in them) – Jesus then says this: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit”
Why should we care about spiritual disciplines and spiritual development? Why should we care about being fruitful? Because it brings glory to God – and this is the very reason we exist! It’s what we were made for!
May the Spirit of God move in us that we would produce the fruit of self-control, and may we be those who work with all the energy that God supplies in order to bear much good fruit that brings God glory!
We tend to use the word “habit” to refer to negative behaviors, such as biting your nails, wasting time online, cracking your knuckles. But not all habits are bad.
In my recent post Going Through the Motions, I talked about how the biblical metaphor of walking, which describes a pattern of life, implies small, continual actions which lead somewhere. With this in mind, habits can be vehicles for transformation. They help us build practices into our lives that shape us into certain kinds of people.
In his book, Desiring the Kingdom, James K.A. Smith pushes back against Rene Descartes assertion that we are fundamentally “thinking beings” who happen to have bodies, and asserts that are bodies play a much more integral part in our formation than many in Western society have tended to think (as a result of Descartes’s philosophy). Thus, the things we do with our bodies have a role in shaping our affections and forming sanctified habits.
“Spiritual disciplines” refer to actions such as prayer, church attendance, studying the Bible, giving generously, serving, taking communion, fasting, and more – which are taught in the Bible and were modeled by Jesus himself. Spiritual disciplines are habits which serve as vehicles of transformation: shaping us through repeated action into certain kinds of people.
Drew Dyke in his book, Your Future Self Will Thank You, points out how God prescribes routines and rituals designed to build holy habits into the lives of His people:
“God commanded the ancient Israelites to observe seven sacred annual feasts, keep the Sabbath, tithe their income, purify themselves, worship regularly, and present offerings and sacrifices at the temple.
Though the New Testament frees Christians from having to keep the whole Jewish law, there are still sacraments like baptism to symbolize our spiritual rebirth and the communion meal to remind us of the sacrifice of Jesus. On top of this, our weekly gatherings include rituals designed to instill beliefs and behaviors to bring us closer to God and each other.
Even in ‘low church’ settings that don’t use the liturgical calendar or recite ancient creeds, there’s often a rather predictable cycle of songs, prayers, and preaching each Sunday. There are Sunday school or midweek small group meetings.”
“But We Shouldn’t Be Religious or Legalistic, Right?”
I have met people who say: “Oh, I don’t want to be religious or legalistic — so I only do those spiritual disciplines sporadically.”
This is not about legalism nor empty religiosity. We do not believe for a minute that any of these things save us. Nor do we do these things in order to manipulate God into blessing us or giving us what we want. That is the definition of legalism: believing that your relationship with God is predicated on your ability to keep rules.
Instead, we do these things in order to be healthy and grow. Eating and sleeping and drinking fluids help us be healthy physically: to do these things only sporadically would be very unwise and cause you to be very unhealthy. The same is true when it comes to a neglect of spiritual disciplines.
Atheism and the Ache for Spiritual Disciplines
Drew Dyke shares in his book about a talk he heard from a man who “gushed about how brilliant the church is to establish such rhythms.” “He waxed eloquent about singing Christmas carols, looking at religious art, and the experience of paging through the Bible.” The surprising thing is that the speaker, Alain de Botton, is an atheist.
“We tend to believe in the modern secular world that if you tell someone something once, they’ll remember it…. Religions go, ‘Nonsense. You need to keep repeating the lesson 10 times a day. So get on your knees and repeat it,’” – Alain de Botton
He isn’t being critical of repetition; just the opposite. He acknowledges that Christianity is very good at creating habits which fuel transformation, and recognizes that atheists are poorer for lacking this.
I would argue that these spiritual disciplines cannot be translated into an atheist or agnostic framework because they are tied to Christian theology. Some humanists try to be “good without God” – but what they lack is the foundation of Christian spiritual formation, which is justification by faith: the fact that in Christ we are accepted and loved by God apart from our good works.
Alain, like James K.A. Smith, states that “The other thing that religions know is we’re not just brains, we are also bodies. And when they teach us a lesson, they do it via the body.” He also praised the biblical practice of dividing up time by having repeating holidays such as Easter and Christmas, which force us to “bump into” key beliefs and celebrate them again and again.
Essentially what this atheist man was rightly observing and praising was that spiritual disciplines are designed to help transform through the development of habits.
Spiritual disciplines are “Spirit-empowered, heart-calibrating, habit-forming practices to retrain our loves.”[1]
Video Discussion
Check out the discussion Mike and I had about transformation, and the roles of the hope of the resurrection and the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Also, about half-way through I spill coffee on my Bible…
Theology for the People 