Cheap and Costly Grace

[Sobeknofret]

This is a topic that I've been considering for awhile but my thoughts are not quite fully formed, so please bear with me...

I've been doing a 40-Day Bible study through Bible Gateway based on the writings of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Many of his core ideas revolve around the concepts of "cheap" grace versus "costly" grace. "

Bonhoeffer writes, "Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace as bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgive­ness, cut-rate comfort, cut-rate sacraments; grace as the church’s inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands without hesitation or limit. It is grace without a price, without cost…Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, as principle, as system. It means forgiveness of sins as a general truth; it means God’s love as merely a Christian idea of God. Those who affirm it have already had their sins forgiven. The church that teaches this doctrine of grace thereby conveys such grace upon itself. The world finds in this church a cheap cover-up for its sins, for which it shows no remorse and from which it has even less desire to be free. Cheap grace is, thus, denial of God’s living Word, denial of the incarnation of the word of God. Cheap grace means justification of sin but not of the sinner. Because grace alone does everything, everything can stay in its old ways. 'Our action is in vain.' The world remains world and we remain sinners 'even in the best of lives'...Cheap grace is that which we bestow on ourselves."

On the other hand, "Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which has to be asked for, the door at which one has to knock. It is costly, because it calls to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live. It is costly, because it condemns sin; it is grace, because it justifies the sinner. Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it cost God the life of God’s Son, 'you were bought with a price,' and because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God. Above all, it is grace because the life of God’s Son was not too costly for God to give in order to make us live…" And to Bonhoeffer, "discipleship," means standing with the oppressed and the downtrodden, giving unconditional love and seeking to change the world by working earnestly to raise the lowest up to stand equal with those who are oppressing them.

It keeps occurring to me that many of the people we criticize here are the living embodiments of what cheap grace does. It makes us argue that the length of our hair really matters to God, as Erika and Phillips/Brown/Botkin, and the Duggars do. We argue that men need to be "manly" and "strong" and women need to be "feminine" and "meek," because that's what God calls us to be. They ignore the larger message in favor of cheap grace, and think it sufficient to get them into heaven.

I'm not sure where I'm really going with this, except I know it's something that's been bugging me for a long while now, but this study really brought it to the forefront. Thoughts?

[Guest Anonymous]

Are you inviting FJers to join you in a bible study or something?

[doggie]

Christians are human they do it the easy way if they can get away with it. God is not exactly a good task master.

[sissyintexas]

This is a topic that I've been considering for awhile but my thoughts are not quite fully formed, so please bear with me...

It keeps occurring to me that many of the people we criticize here are the living embodiments of what cheap grace does. It makes us argue that the length of our hair really matters to God, as Erika and Phillips/Brown/Botkin, and the Duggars do. We argue that men need to be "manly" and "strong" and women need to be "feminine" and "meek," because that's what God calls us to be. They ignore the larger message in favor of cheap grace, and think it sufficient to get them into heaven.

I'm not sure where I'm really going with this, except I know it's something that's been bugging me for a long while now, but this study really brought it to the forefront. Thoughts?

I agree. An "holier than thou" attitude just because you don't cut your hair or show your shoulders is definitely the easy way out.

[Sobeknofret]

Are you inviting FJers to join you in a bible study or something?

Oh no! Not my intent at all! It's just an idea thqts been brewing. Instead of doing the hard things that the Bible asks them to do, so many of these fundies are opting to do the cheap stuff and pretending it's the hard stuff. It's way easier to quibble about the length of your hair than it is to try and help migrant workers get healthcare or help women and men in shelters get job skills or find ways to escape abusive partners. Abigail sobs about being emotionally orphaned, but it's easier to do that than try to find ways to help children who are being abused or adults who have suffered abuse. It's a cheap excuse to make no impact on the world and pretend you did. It's like those stupid memes on Facebook that ask you to post your bra color as your status to "support" breast cancer research, when in reality it does nothing at all, except make you look like a tool.

[Guest Anonymous]

I agree that the fundies' talk is mostly cheap. I just find much of the "costly grace" talk abhorrent too, and it's focus tends to be on the "gracious Christian".

It is costly, because it condemns sin; it is grace, because it justifies the sinner. Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it cost God the life of God’s Son, 'you were bought with a price,' and because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God.

Above all, I think this "grace" is most costly to those judged to be sinning and harrassed to turn to a god they may neither believe nor care about.

[Koala]

On the other hand, "Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which has to be asked for, the door at which one has to knock. It is costly, because it calls to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live. It is costly, because it condemns sin; it is grace, because it justifies the sinner. Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it cost God the life of God’s Son, 'you were bought with a price,' and because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God. Above all, it is grace because the life of God’s Son was not too costly for God to give in order to make us live…" And to Bonhoeffer, "discipleship," means standing with the oppressed and the downtrodden, giving unconditional love and seeking to change the world by working earnestly to raise the lowest up to stand equal with those who are oppressing them.

Totally honest? This was a giant wall of text for me, but the above part did stand out.

I think the business about our sin "costing" God his son is bullshit. Her's why:

~God creates man

~God creates man w/ free will

~Being "all knowing", God knows beforehand that man will "sin". Ergo, God created a faulty "product".

Next step:

~God creates hell

~God sets belief in him as the "price" for entrance into heaven

~God requires a blood sacrifice to cover the "sin" of his faulty product (In other words, he set the price)

~God selects his son (who is also himself - see trinity) as the sacrificial lamb to appease his own requirement to save his faulty product from a hell (torture) he created

~According to the Christians, God's son (also himself) didn't really die. He's alive. Now. So technically he was just tortured. To appease his father's (or his own, depending on how you look at it) insane requirements.

To sum it up, God created a place of torture and then set about requiring further torture to save us all from the torture he created in the first place. And if you're unfortunate enough not to buy into that story? You guessed it, you'll be tortured.

Things that make you go hmmm.... :roll:

[Koala]

Oh no! Not my intent at all! It's just an idea thqts been brewing. Instead of doing the hard things that the Bible asks them to do, so many of these fundies are opting to do the cheap stuff and pretending it's the hard stuff. It's way easier to quibble about the length of your hair than it is to try and help migrant workers get healthcare or help women and men in shelters get job skills or find ways to escape abusive partners. Abigail sobs about being emotionally orphaned, but it's easier to do that than try to find ways to help children who are being abused or adults who have suffered abuse. It's a cheap excuse to make no impact on the world and pretend you did. It's like those stupid memes on Facebook that ask you to post your bra color as your status to "support" breast cancer research, when in reality it does nothing at all, except make you look like a tool.

The Bible did indeed require many "hard" things. For example:

Women were to be married to their rapist or stoned if they didn't scream loud enough

Slaves were given rules for obeying their masters

God ordered the death of many women and children

I could go on...

[AnnieC 305]

They sit here and preach that what you wear and what you look like and how self-righteous you can be is what matters. But when you suggest that they feel the hungry or clothe the naked or help the poor or the homeless they say something along the lines of how grace is only given through belief, it cannot be earned through works like the ebil Catholics do.

The end result appears to be, at least from the outside, that you can do whatever you want whenever you want to whomever you want and as long as you keep begging forgiveness God will keep giving you that Get Out Of Jail Free card. Which makes Christians some of the most wicked, perverse, dangerous people out there. How many have we heard of stealing and lying and molesting children and then turning around and saying that they ought to go free for they are forgiven? And how many have flounced and become indignant when they found out that they were going to be treated the same as anyone else?

Heck, it even made the movies.

Pete: The Preacher said it absolved us.

Ulysses Everett McGill: For him, not for the law. I'm surprised at you, Pete, I gave you credit for more brains than Delmar.

Delmar O'Donnell: But they was witnesses that seen us redeemed.

Ulysses Everett McGill: That's not the issue Delmar. Even if that did put you square with the Lord, the State of Mississippi's a little more hard-nosed.

Even in daily life Christian Privilege is a very real thing. How many times have we seen them pulling the spesul snowflake card? They all thing they deserve the royal treatment because they are forgiven.

That's cheap grace to me.

[Closed Womb]

It keeps occurring to me that many of the people we criticize here are the living embodiments of what cheap grace does. It makes us argue that the length of our hair really matters to God, as Erika and Phillips/Brown/Botkin, and the Duggars do. We argue that men need to be "manly" and "strong" and women need to be "feminine" and "meek," because that's what God calls us to be. They ignore the larger message in favor of cheap grace, and think it sufficient to get them into heaven.

Cheap vs. costly grace is not a narrative I have heard before. Personally, I think the message sounds condescending and legalistic.

However, I do have an opinion about the outward embodiments of God within the Fundies' lives. I have long thought that they fight to have obvious signs of their devotion to God in order to (1) announce their "Godliness" to the world and (2) identify and judge others who are not as "righteous" as they believe themselves to be. I think the modesty/defrauding/split ends are pleasing to God lines are bull.

I have found that most people will push the man-made boundaries that have been set up for them by their church/religion. I recall going to an Apostolic Church with a friend (her now husband invited her there; he is now a pastor, although in the Pentecostal denomination.) They were skirts only, no hair cuts, no jewelry (except for wedding rings and decorative pins.) As expected, their dresses would be nicer on Sundays than on other days, but they also did this really weird thing with their hair -- almost all the (white) women would tightly curl the top of their hair and pile it so that it kinda, sorta appeared cut (kind of mullet-ish.) They also had the most ornate wedding rings - some of them had anniversary ring after anniversary ring on that finger, until the rings reached the knuckle. Most wore extremely ornate pins. It was truly ridiculous to behold. But, they had a natural desire for nice jewelry and shorter, styled hair, so this was the only way to get that and stay within the "rules."

Personally, I have found that some women who dress modestly, hold traditional gender roles, etc., really are sweet, godly creatures that do not judge others (or, at least do not judge others aloud.) Seriously. Others hide bitter hate for all things non-Christian behind the veil of long hair and skirts of denim. I cannot correlate a frumper with cheap or costly grace.

[Guest Anonymous]

Totally honest? This was a giant wall of text for me, but the above part did stand out.

I think the business about our sin "costing" God his son is bullshit. Her's why:

~God creates man

~God creates man w/ free will

~Being "all knowing", God knows beforehand that man will "sin". Ergo, God created a faulty "product".

Next step:

~God creates hell

~God sets belief in him as the "price" for entrance into heaven

~God requires a blood sacrifice to cover the "sin" of his faulty product (In other words, he set the price)

~God selects his son (who is also himself - see trinity) as the sacrificial lamb to appease his own requirement to save his faulty product from a hell (torture) he created

~According to the Christians, God's son (also himself) didn't really die. He's alive. Now. So technically he was just tortured. To appease his father's (or his own, depending on how you look at it) insane requirements.

To sum it up, God created a place of torture and then set about requiring further torture to save us all from the torture he created in the first place. And if you're unfortunate enough not to buy into that story? You guessed it, you'll be tortured.

Things that make you go hmmm.... :roll:

I agree with this post. The bolded has often confused me. Why should anyone feel grateful that Jesus died for their sins, when it's God who required such a ridiculous measure?

[Sobeknofret]

The Bible did indeed require many "hard" things. For example:

Women were to be married to their rapist or stoned if they didn't scream loud enough

Slaves were given rules for obeying their masters

God ordered the death of many women and children

I could go on...

Yeah, because no secular government ever made horrendous laws either... :roll:

[Koala]

Why should anyone feel grateful that Jesus died for their sins, when it's God who required such a ridiculous measure?

They shouldn't.

He created the "product", he created the hell, he created the requirement. The torture he is saving us from is the torture he created. There are many ways that all of this could have been averted. He could have:

~Not created a faulty product

~Not created hell

~Not required the torture of his own son (or self) to appease himself

For me it would be the equivalent of being taken hostage and threatened with torture only to be presented with the following options:

A. Express worship and gratitude to my captor in order to be spared torture.

B. Refuse to express gratitude to my captor and face torture.

Either way, the captor is in the wrong. Sure I may express (false) worship and gratitude in order to be spared torture, but do you think I'm really grateful? No. Do you think he has really shown grace? No.

He took me captive and planned to torture me. To let me go would not be "grace". He had no right to torture me in the first place.

The Bible paints God as a villain no matter how you slice it. Luckily I'm an Atheist and it means fuck all to me. :lol:

[Koala]

Yeah, because no secular government ever made horrendous laws either... :roll:

Umm, we aren't talking about gov. are we? And I certainly never claimed that gov. never made horrendous laws. We are talking about a supposedly perfect god and his supposed grace.

You stated that the Bible required "hard" things and I simply listed a few of those hard things. I was agreeing with you. ;) No one was talking about the gov.

[jjmennonite]

Totally honest? This was a giant wall of text for me, but the above part did stand out.

I think the business about our sin "costing" God his son is bullshit. Her's why:

~God creates man

~God creates man w/ free will

~Being "all knowing", God knows beforehand that man will "sin". Ergo, God created a faulty "product".

Next step:

~God creates hell

~God sets belief in him as the "price" for entrance into heaven

~God requires a blood sacrifice to cover the "sin" of his faulty product (In other words, he set the price)

~God selects his son (who is also himself - see trinity) as the sacrificial lamb to appease his own requirement to save his faulty product from a hell (torture) he created

~According to the Christians, God's son (also himself) didn't really die. He's alive. Now. So technically he was just tortured. To appease his father's (or his own, depending on how you look at it) insane requirements.

To sum it up, God created a place of torture and then set about requiring further torture to save us all from the torture he created in the first place. And if you're unfortunate enough not to buy into that story? You guessed it, you'll be tortured.

Things that make you go hmmm.... :roll:

This is why I am no longer a believer. God is quite the asshat, isn't she?

[mirele]

All Bonhoeffer's cheap grace versus costly grace did for me was put me on a guilt trip. Every time I read about it, I felt guilty because I thought I was taking advantage of cheap grace.

I could have done without this in my life. But it wasn't until I was able to question the foundational argument of Christianity, that I needed someone else to die for me because I wasn't perfect, I couldn't.

Koala talks about being captured by a torturer and given two options. I feel the same way. I am also of the opinion that if God is so everfucking almighty, etc., he could have waved his/her hand and fixed everything without the abomination of a human sacrifice. Because, if you buy the argument, God had to be appeased of his own anger, so he sacrificed himself to himself ... and now I am getting a headache.

Let's just say I've been happier in the last six years of my life since I walked away from "the Christian faith." It's not been easy, there are days I wish I had it to fall back on, but it's HONEST. And to me, honesty is very important.

[Koala]

Umm, we aren't talking about gov. are we? And I certainly never claimed that gov. never made horrendous laws. We are talking about a supposedly perfect god and his supposed grace.

You stated that the Bible required "hard" things and I simply listed a few of those hard things. I was agreeing with you. ;) No one was talking about the gov.

Really hoping you will address the "ZOMG, gov. does bad things too" argument.

[formergothardite]

Yeah, I didn't understand the gov. makes bad choices too argument either. The government isn't claiming to be the divine word of God that you must follow.

[Guest Anonymous]

I still don't get the purpose of this thread really.

[Koala]

I still don't get the purpose of this thread really.

I don't either, but in for a penny in for a pound :lol:

[valsa]

I think the business about our sin "costing" God his son is bullshit. Her's why:

~God creates man

~God creates man w/ free will

~Being "all knowing", God knows beforehand that man will "sin". Ergo, God created a faulty "product"

I think it's worse than this. I don't believe in God but, if he does exist, I'm 100% certain he intended for us to be exactly the way we are (or he's the biggest moron ever)

The way I learned it, supposedly we all deserve to go to hell because of original sin (disobedience to God via Eve and the apple) Except that God put Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden with no concept of Good or Evil (which, according to the Bible itself, they did not obtain until they ate the fruit) So how the hell were they supposed to know it was wrong to disobey God if they have absolutely no way of knowing right from wrong?

According to the Bible, humanity is playing a game that was rigged from the very start.

[Koala]

I think it's worse than this. I don't believe in God but, if he does exist, I'm 100% certain he intended for us to be exactly the way we are (or he's the biggest moron ever)

The way I learned it, supposedly we all deserve to go to hell because of original sin (disobedience to God via Eve and the apple) Except that God put Adam and Eve into the Garden of Eden with no concept of Good or Evil (which, according to the Bible itself, they did not obtain until they ate the fruit) So how the hell were they supposed to know it was wrong to disobey God if they have absolutely no way of knowing right from wrong?

According to the Bible, humanity is playing a game that was rigged from the very start.

Well put. I completely agree.

I think that's why it kills me to see them falling all over themselves talking about "grace'.

[formergothardite]

It seems like there has been a recent obsession with "grace" among Christians. I never really understood grace to begin with and I don't understand all the various kinds of grace now.

How is saying all women must have long hair grace?

How is helping the poor grace?

From my understanding the top one is cheap grace and the bottom one is costly grace but I don't understand why either of them are grace to begin with.

[Austin]

All Bonhoeffer's cheap grace versus costly grace did for me was put me on a guilt trip. Every time I read about it, I felt guilty because I thought I was taking advantage of cheap grace.

I could have done without this in my life. But it wasn't until I was able to question the foundational argument of Christianity, that I needed someone else to die for me because I wasn't perfect, I couldn't.

Koala talks about being captured by a torturer and given two options. I feel the same way. I am also of the opinion that if God is so everfucking almighty, etc., he could have waved his/her hand and fixed everything without the abomination of a human sacrifice. Because, if you buy the argument, God had to be appeased of his own anger, so he sacrificed himself to himself ... and now I am getting a headache.

Let's just say I've been happier in the last six years of my life since I walked away from "the Christian faith." It's not been easy, there are days I wish I had it to fall back on, but it's HONEST. And to me, honesty is very important.

QFT. In the beginning I was somewhat terrified, but now I consider it one of the best decisions I've ever made.

[formergothardite]

Leaving Christianity really is the best, most freeing decision I have ever made. I am a better person without the Christian God.