St Augustine made this statement in the fourth century AD, in regard to the Christian life. I often wonder why we made it so much more legalistic than those simple words. If we pursue a life in love with God, we will be living in line of his will. Maybe if we focused more attention on loving God, and building that relationship, we wouldn’t have to work out so many of the do’s & don’ts, as we would (super)naturally making choices that please him.
I was reading from a blog this morning, and the writer brought to light a great quote from Charles Ringma, author of Resist the Powers with Jacques Ellul. I think this quote is greatly relevant to the search of what it really means to be “in the world but not of it”:
“There is no virtue in isolating ourselves from the world. This will not safeguard our spirituality. But it will certainly condemn us to irrelevance. There is also no virtue in being culturally ‘trendy’ and accepting blindly the latest offering in the round of personal and social ‘cures.’ At the same time, there is not merit in being out of touch with the critical issues of our time. Ellul laments that Christians are usually ‘several steps behind.’ Consequently, they seek to provide answers to questions that people are no longer asking. Instead, the Christian is called to be both relevant and different. If we fail to be relevant, we cannot be heard. If we fail to be different, we have nothing to say. This calls us to both a critical immersion in the issues of the world of our day and in a withdrawal for the purposes of reflection, prayer and discernment.
I think about/write about the “in the world/of the world” concept a lot, as it seems to me to be a critical principle that we must grasp before we can understand fully our freedom to observe and create art.
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