My thinking on spiritual disciplines is affected by some bad experiences. I have to admit it, you know.
I guess the most significant experience happened back in the 1970s when my church was under the influence of the “Crossroads Movement,” which later become the “Boston Movement” and later the International Churches of Christ.
The idea back then was you had to have a “prayer partner” and a “quiet time.” You must start your day with a Bible study and prayer time — or else. But “or else” what?
I remember an elders and deacons meeting with the ministers who were teaching this. Obvious enough, having someone to pray with is a good thing. Starting the day with a time of quiet prayer and reflection is good. Yes, these are very good things indeed.
But what are the consequences if I don’t? Well, the elders and deacons asked the ministers this exact question. And they responded (and this is nearly verbatim), “We’re not saying that you can’t go to heaven if you don’t do these things; but we don’t see how you can make it if you don’t.” Yep.
And those members of the church who did these things were in good with the ministers and were accorded a higher, holier status than the rest of us (I’m a rebel. I just couldn’t go along with the whole Crossroads deal.) And that led to resentment from the “less holy” members. And then eventually the ministers proved their wickedness, and so that phase of our congregational life came to an end.
You will note a tone of bitterness. Yes, it’s entirely possible to take perfectly holy things and turn them into Satanic tools for legalism, division, and such — all the while pretending it’s just a nice, optional practice that “isn’t 100% required — but you’re not really very likely to make it otherwise.”
And so, when I hear references to the individual spiritual disciplines, my ears are keenly attuned to the legalism that so often attends these teachings. You see, I think we really need to take our teachings from the Bible, not from what some modern-day prophet thinks up what seems to be a really good idea that’s not really in the Bible. Just, you know, sort of in there some where.
On Dallas Willard’s website, he’s posted an article he wrote in 1985: “Asceticism: An Essential but Neglected Element in the Christian Theory of the Moral Life” (previously unpublished paper, presented at the meeting of The Society of Christian Philosophers. San Francisco, March, 1985).
He gives as examples of ascetic practices: “Celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues.” He later expands the list:
solitude, silence, fasting and deprivations of various kinds, certain types of prayer, frugality, simplicity or plainness, certain acts of service or submission to others, pilgrimage, watching” (going without sleep), submission to a director, and meditation. However they may also include poverty and celibacy, and have on occasion involved more extreme practices such as wearing uncomfortable clothing or painful harnesses, living for years on a small platform on top of a pole (Simon Stylites et. al.), living in a cubicle no bigger than a small closet, flagellation (inflicted by oneself or by others), refusing to protect oneself from the elements or from insects, and avoiding the sight of a woman (even one’s relatives) for decades
He points out that the early church urged such practices beginning with Clement of Alexandria and Origen (also the earliest authors to condemn instrumental music) and their commendation of asceticism continued for centuries. However, the Reformers rejected ascetic practices, as having nothing to do with salvation, baptism, or communion.
Willard, however, disagrees —
Yet we must ask if this outlook, so much a part of the contemporary world, is compatible with an adequate theory of the moral life, much less an adequate Christian theory of the moral life. I think that it is not. In particular, if I am right, it cannot deal with the problem of how individuals become good, consistently acting and feeling as they know they ought, and it sustains itself only by means of a naive hope in the power of enlightenment over life.
In other words, to become “good” we must not rely on “a naive hope of enlightenment over life” but must instead submit to proper ascetic practices.
Those who adopt Hume’s view on ascetic practices [as unnecessary] cannot, it seems to me, deal with this problem of moral formation, and they cannot do so, I maintain, precisely because that view does not take seriously the bodily nature of human personality and the foundation of the effective will for good and right in the ingrained behavioral tendencies of the body and its parts. It is because the effective moral will is so founded that I refer to asceticism as an essential element in the Christian theory of the moral life. (emphasis added.)
Thus, Willard argues asceticism is essential because we cannot be good otherwise. Or, if I read him correctly, we can’t count on the power of the Spirit and the church to help us make it. We have to resort to our own means. To count on the Holy Spirit would be “naive hope.”
So much for the Christian moral ideal [of love for our neighbors]. How is it to be realized in or by particular persons? What precise steps can bring us to actual participation in this ideal, against which the ordinary course of human existence seems so steadily to offend? I think that Christian ethical thinking in the modern period has not done well with this question because of its (often knee-jerk) rejection of ascetic practices as a possible means of Christ-realization in the individual self. This is associated with a usual failure to understand the body’s positive contribution to moral transformation and the realization of ethical ideals.
It’s not good enough to recognize that we should love our neighbors. To turn theory into practice, we must adopt “ascetic practices.” Of course, the role Willard gives to asceticism is precisely the role the scriptures give to the Holy Spirit and the church. How does he achieve such a surprising result — finding asceticism “essential” to being good?
It is almost proverbial in Christian circles, and very commonly accepted beyond, that the primary hindrance to doing what we admittedly ought lies in the “flesh,” and thereby in the body. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is week [sic]” (Matthew 26:41) can be regarded not as a scolding, but as an analysis; “In me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:17) can be taken not as a complaint or a condemnation, but as a description, stating a useful truth about a fundamental component of human personality.
Willard’s equating of “flesh” with the body is Greek dualism and very poor Bible scholarship. It is, in fact, more than a little Gnostic. N. T. Wright explains,
My basic proposal, as is already apparent, is that we need to think in terms of a differentiated unity. Paul and the other early Christian writers didn’t reify their anthropological terms. Though Paul uses his language with remarkable consistency, he nowhere suggests that any of the key terms refers to a particular ‘part’ of the human being to be played off against any other. Each [of “flesh” and “soul”] denotes the entire human being, while connoting some angle of vision on who that human is and what he or she is called to be. Thus, for instance, sarx, flesh, refers to the entire human being but connotes corruptibility, failure, rebellion, and then sin and death. Psyche [soul] denotes the entire human being, and connotes that human as possessed or ordinary mortal life, with breath and blood sustained by food and drink.
To equate a body to “flesh,” as Paul uses the word, is to associate all wickedness with the body and thus all goodness with the “soul” as though we are dual beings with evil bodies and holy souls. It’s just plain ol’ Gnosticism, which is, of course, the root behind much of the early church’s asceticism.
Now, Willard is aware of this problem and tries to beg out of it —
This need not be taken as saying that the body or the bodily is, as such, opposed to moral behavior, or even to the higher reaches of the spiritual life. It is no part of the position here taken that the flesh or the physical is inherently evil. It is enough that the body as we normally find it functioning in developed human personality has very much of a life of its own, which in various ways opposes (but equally well might assist?) conscious intent, whether prudential, moral or spiritual
And so we have to repress bodily desires with ascetic practices? Sorry — it’s still Gnostic and not remotely scriptural. Willard adopts the Gnostic cure — mortification of the flesh — because his overall thesis is ultimately that the only way to control the flesh is through ascetic practices.
Willard argues,
It is the active tendencies to feel and act which are present in the substance and the parts of the human body that foil the conscious and sincere intent of Christ-realization—or, more generally, the ordinary human intent to do what is acknowledged to be right and good. The general human condition is then characterized by the words of St. Paul: “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” (Romans 7:19)
Willard’s reading of Romans seems to have stopped at the end of chapter 7. Isn’t it worth reading on to chapter 8? And chapter 8 declares that the cure for problem of sin is not asceticism, but grace and the indwelling Spirit! You can search Romans hard for a command to solve the sin problem through asceticism, but you’ll only find that the sin problem is solved by Jesus’ death, which brings the Spirit and establishes the church as Christ’s body on earth.
To refer once more back to the New Testament writings, it is clear that ascetic practices were seriously engaged in by Jesus as well as by St. Paul. Both were upon occasion intensely involved, for long periods of time, with solitude, fasting, prayer, poverty and sacrificial service, and not because those conditions were unavoidable. It would seem, then, that those who would follow Christ, and follow Paul as he followed Christ (I Corinthians 11:1), must find in those practices an important part of what they should undertake as His disciples. Certainly this was so in the early centuries of the Christian era. For some reason, however, it is rarely done now; and outstanding Christian writers of the present time do not normally suggest that the practices of Jesus and Paul should be adopted by us. We are to be like them, but without following techniques which they seem to have found necessary.
I refer the reader to chapter 7 of John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus
Willard concludes,
This is true without regard to whether or not we are religious. Ascetic practices are relevant to the kinds of persons we become. Without them we can only drift, subject to whatever influences come our way. With them, on the other hand, we have the possibility of some significant control over our moral future. But this is especially true for the Christian, who can also count upon an assistance beyond him or her self—though not an assistance that replaces our own initiative toward moral realization through planned disciplinary exercises.
Seriously? We only have the possibility of “some significant control” over our moral failures by asceticism? Not by the power of the Spirit? Not with the encouragement of fellow Christians? Even God Almighty can’t make us good unless we become ascetics?
I’m horrified. Here’s why —
(Col 2:18-23 ESV) 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. 20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations — 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)–according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
(1Ti 4:1-5 ESV) Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
The New Testament is quite clear that we are to reject asceticism. We are not drawn closer to God by denying ourselves the good things God gave us. No, the Bible gives us an entirely different path to holiness.
Now, does this mean that the individual spiritual disciplines are wicked? Well, not inherently … no. But Willard’s teachings must be handled with great care. He is pursuing an agenda that sometimes intersects with the Bible … and sometimes doesn’t.
Handle with care. You see, he’s teaching something very close to a works salvation and denying the adequacy of the Spirit and the church to sanctify. Indeed, it’s hardly surprising that many in the Churches of Christ find this teaching appealing. It’s legalism repackaged.
There are, of course, many other teachers of spiritual disciplines who come from other angles. You can teach others to seek time to pray and meditate without being a legalist.
Just don’t buy into the lies that the spiritual disciplines are essential, that God’s help is inadequate, or that you are somehow only a disciple if you practice these disciplines. Those are just not true. We should flee such teaching.
I wonder if Willard still believes what he wrote ?
Someone pointed out to me once that the “Flesh” is usually considered only in the negative…. Actually, flesh can be positive in nature…yet, it is still Flesh…
You’re so right Jay, Romans 8 just shoots this article in the head…If we “by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the Flesh (both good and bad flesh) we will live.” It’s difficult to believe that legalism still has a hold on so many good people…
If we perform our ascetic disciplines, so that we can talk about them, then it’s very possible, our motivation is flawed. The ascetic disciplines are private and not for public consumption.
Remember what Jesus said about praying in private?
Jay:
I think I followed about 1/2 of the post really well. 🙂 However, I am left with a question: Is Bible reading and pray part of ascetism? Or is there just a point where you cross from ‘good’ to ‘ascetic’?
As a preacher who seems to include in 95% of his sermons some reference to the need to study, I am constantly conflicted with the idea you ask. “or else what?”
It is just not possible for me to say “or else you won’t make it” and yet, it seems so strong in me to say “but you have to….”
Aside from the usual passages in Timothy there are many passages that enlighten us to the need to integrate God’s teaching into our life and the implication is that the more we know, the more we will do. Psalm 119 is a perfect example of how God’s law, statutes, commandments, ways are to be put into our heart.
Of course, the rulers of Jesus’ day also show that knowledge is not always perfect and ‘knowing’ the law does not always mean that they ‘KNOW’ the law. So it reading God’s word essential? Can you get to heaven without doing so?
Can one get to Heaven knowing only the DBR of Christ? I would say yes, however, maturing in Christ seems to require the milk of the word and moving on to meat (yet the mature is not MORE saved).
Those times in my life where was not reading were not great times and every reason under the sun was available, including ‘i forgot to’ . Developing a more personal relationship with the God of Heaven and partaking of his Divine nature can not be done by a leagalistic requirement to read the Bible for so many minutes or chapters daily, yet neither can it be perfected apart from spending time in His word.
No one dare say ‘because I read I am saved’ but there is a danger of departing to the left of right (Dt 17:20) if you don’t read.
Perhaps the principle of giving might apply here. God loves a cheerful giver. God loves a cheerful reader. Let no one read out of compulsion but still let them read. Those that read and do will be blessed (can I say ‘more blessed’–perhaps as long as you don’t mean ‘more saved’), those that read and don’t do (or perhaps don’t read so as to learn what not to do) will not be blessed and perhaps in danger.
Anyway, i am starting to ramble. but it is good re wrestle with questions like this. Thanks for the post
We had a similar discussion last night in a small group. Too often, we approach practices like Bible study, prayer, and other “spiritual disciplines” with a “you should do this and that and the other thing.”
I may be an idealist, but I prefer an approach that says, “I find great comfort in reading the Bible, praying, and this and that and the other thing. I find those practices to be wonderful gifts from God.”
Then, maybe, just maybe, someone will ask, “How does that work? Would you show me?”
I seem to recall Jesus doing something like this, and then some guys asked Jesus something like, “teach us to pray.”
Again, I am probably too idealistic.
The scriptures do teach however that we shall be content with the necessities of life. In the context of our rich environment this is indeed a call to asceticism, a call to deny yourself luxuries that go beyond your needs.
I can make a pretty strong case for fasting from the scriptures and the ECF, for regular times of prayer as well (the 3rd, 6th and 9th hour). And I can tell you that we will have a hard time convincing ANY of our Muslim neighbors who practice “community disciplines” as an expression of their faith (25-30% of my immediate neighborhood are Mulims). But of course we don’t have to become like THEM in order to win some of them, don’t we …
How shall we explain our lack of such disciplines to them?
a) We first have to hide all scriptural references to regular times of prayer or fasting from them – by this we can at least pretend that there are no such things in the Bible.
b) We then have to somehow make them believe that such “rituals” are carnal and childish, that what really matters is only spiritual. And we must somehow demonstrate that having a “spiritual religiosity” is much harder than such outward rituals.
c) This is best dne by telling them up front how we struggle with or Bible Reading and times of prayer that are entirely unfixed: “See it is much harder to maintain a spiritual life without having fxed times and regulations, Mustafa! But you are so legalistic in your obsevance of your five hours of prayer each and every day! Don’t you want to experience our FREEDOM in Christ?”
Do you really believe this would work? Does it even convince ourselves? In fact such a view is completely in line with Ancient Gnosticism, a sound doctrine commended (or condemned?) by all Apostles of our Lord!
Alexander
What are you saying, Alexander?
Shall we then teach obedience to ritual in order to be saved?
That seems to be your message in this last post.
No, that’s not what i am saying.
But I do suggest that we take scriptural disciplines the way they are meant to be: As a way to train ourselves in our relationship with the invisible God by visible means.
I see that we fail when we don’t define certain disciplines. I see it as unhealthy if every Christian stands on his or her own when it comes to live out the faith. I see that “we don’t need rituals” boils down to “we don’t need disciplines” – and it becomes a handy excuse for not praying regularly, nor studying the scriptures – fasting has been neglected among Protestants for centuries already.
Not everything we ought to do and practice are salvation issues! But disciplines like fixed hours of prayer are not of Islamic origin, but of Early Christian – even Apostolic! – origin. I doubt that we are more spiriutal than – let’s say – Peter who prayed at certain hours a day. From the ECF we know that from the very beginning (1st century Didache testifies to this) Christians were taught to pray three times a day and to fast twice a week.
Yes, David, we don’t need to do this in order to be saved. But do you have any idea why then our Lord spoke about prayer and gave us an example of a regular prayer life? Or why he taught about fasting and said (imagined, expected?) that His disciples would fast when He is gone? Or why He knelt in prayer? Or why we should lift up our arms? Surely He did not mean that we REALLY should wash one another’s feet, did he? But why do we break the bread? Why even baptize?
Christianity is not Gnosticism, David. Our whole being – body, soul and spirit – needs to be sanctified. These “external rituals” shall reflect what’s inside, shall develop and further our spirituality.
All I see is how proud and self confident Protestants (they are about the only ones in the broad spectrum of Christianity) scoff at such disciplines as “legalistic”, “external” or even something to “reject”. And I look at them and look at them (and us and me) … but I see people that only in very few ways differ from the world around them. Why? For one thing: They won’t deny themselves anthing what God has created (and the world offers). And even our scales testify against us …
All in all: This is all but convincing.
Alexander
Extrascriptural practices which are required by church leaders fall under the purview of Romans 14: don’t do it. Extrascriptural practices which are voluntary are not prohibited, nor can they be said to be essential. But they may still be beneficial on an individual or voluntarily corporate basis.
I don’t find it commanded to fast. But Jesus gives specific instructions about what to do when one chooses to fast, which are congruent with what He revealed through His Spirit to Paul: Keep it between yourself and God.
Yet in Acts 13, believers fasted and prayed together, so I have to conclude that believers can covenant together to do so — but not require each other to do so.
I’ve fasted, sometimes in covenant with my wife, while praying. I believe it has benefit. I would not legislate it at all, but I would highly recommend it. Am I rejecting what God has given to be received with thanksgiving? Yes, just as a single person delays receiving the blessing of sexual sharing until married; a fast delays that gratification and gratitude until a more appropriate time.
I agree with not binding our own devotions on other believers. I believe we have done too much legislating and not enough encouraging. More lovers and leaders, fewer legislators and lawyers. (Sorry, Jay. Present company excepted.)
But before we draw the line at that which is “extrascriptural”, we should give that some thought. I wonder why the example in Acts 13 is not binding, while the one in Acts 20:7 is expected to be followed by every congregation everywhere every week. Both are equally “scriptural”. How can one be “voluntary” while the other is required? The trouble is that so much can be found to be “scriptural”. But does a practice being recorded in scripture sanctify it for all men and for all time? Does the fact that something is not found in scripture mean that God will not call us to do it? We need deeper discernment than a concordance can afford us.
Price asked,
It’s currently posted on his website and, to me, strongly parallels his current teaching. I’ve just found a more recent (2008) article that seems to be based on the same essay but re-written to respond to some of the same objections I have. http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=132
He now gives explicit credit to the Spirit, but considers the Spirit inadequate unless supported by specific spiritual disciplines —
Now, I can hardly criticize some of his list — which has changed since 1985 but contains abstinence, which he lists first as of particular value. The only reference to abstinence for married people in the NT is Paul giving permission for abstinence, for a season, to pray. How does it make it to the top of the list?
And solitude and silence are particularly suspect disciplines, in my mind, unless one is proceeding from an ascetic mindset. Why not study within community? Why not conversation with wiser Christians? Aren’t these of at least equal value? Why such a strong bias toward individual, solitary practices when the church desperately needs a stronger sense of community and our younger members desperately need to learn the pleasures of sharing time and experience with older members?
Where does the NT teach that solitude and silence are among the most valuable disciplines? It just doesn’t. He’s prooftexting in order to achieve a predetermined outcome — the elevation of ascetic practices as a “necessary” means toward being a true Christian.
I continue to think that Willard is as much a Gnostic as a Christian.
I don’t know why the interpretation of Acts 20:7 as a commanded observance of the last supper on Sundays snd Sundays only is considered “binding” either.
It’s a pretty sure bet that Jesus and the Twelve didn’t celebrate it on Sunday … math won’t support that interpretation. It’s a good possibility that the “breaking bread” and “daily” of Acts 2:42ff refer to it. And several folks have pointed out that while the believers assembled on the first day of the week in Acts 20 but were delayed by a long sermon / discussion / mission report til the next day.
But there is something odd about believers who don’t want to remember Christ in this way that He asked with some degree of frequency.
Enterprise,
Willard’s 1985 article speaks explicitly of asceticism, and asceticism is condemned in the scriptures. It just shows what a poor theologian Willard is when it comes to the disciplines.
A practice becomes ascetic when it’s seen as a part to salvation by mortifying the flesh. If I study to learn, that’s not ascetic. If I study because I’ll go to hell if I miss a day of Bible reading, it’s a works salvation and very wrong. If I study as a way to escape the world and hide from others, it’s ascetic and wrong. We aren’t called to leave the world but to be separate from the world. Be in the world but not of the world.
Study, you see, is a means not an end. We study to become better disciples. But the best disciples aren’t necessarily the best studier. They are the best doers. We study to do wisely. But if we don’t do, the study is meaningless.
I’m a lawyer. I do a lot of study, go to seminar, read a lot of law. If I mastered every law inside out, I’d be a terrible lawyer because lawyers work for and help clients. The best lawyers help clients the best. Study is necessary but not the definition of a good lawyer.
The same is true of prayer. The Bible plainly urges Christians to pray. It doesn’t urge them to spend weeks in prayer at a time. I know there are those who’d disagree, but Jesus said,
The Lord’s Prayer is short and direct. We don’t win God’s approval by heaping up words or going long. We don’t earn his favor by imposing misery on ourselves.
Now, for those who enjoy hours and hours of prayer, then I’m sure God has the patience for it. But it’s not a higher level of holiness. Our closeness to God isn’t measured by the hours we put into prayer. Indeed, that may be a measure of a lack of confidence in God to answer yesterday’s prayer!
Again, God isn’t going to resent a long prayer but neither do you get bonus points. I think he’d rather that you be helping an orphan or widow.
Jay…wouldn’t it be beneficial if people who have something to offer, such as Brother Willard, would express their beliefs by saying something like, “it is good for me when I…..” rather than setting forth a required pattern of performance for everybody else…
I believe it was Fox News that had an article 6-8 months or so ago that said the most effective thing that the religious leaders today could do to be more relevant in society would be to include the words, “in my opinion.” I’m thinking it would greatly benefit the community who identify themselves as Christians…
Bama 5 1/2….??
Dwayne,
I entirely agree. Prayer is a gift, given to bless our lives, not to be a burden we must bear.
Price,
Amen.
Amen.
Bama covers.
Jay,
I remember the “personal evangelism” movement of the 1970s ahead of the discipling movement: supposedly one effectively could not go to heaven without having converted someone. It was the big trend of its day: cold calling for the Church and church doctrine, not the Cross. I wasn’t very good at it as a teenager.
From what I read of church history, asceticism became a phenomenon of the Church of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and its appearance comes as the Church becomes increasingly – and then fully – free of state persecution (Roman imperial, that is). It’s not a practice of the early Church; it’s the practice of an established church that is moving into a later phase of mature development. It is a practice that tends to emerge in the absence of persecution and overt physical danger.
As noted elsewhere, self-discipline in one’s actions is not asceticism; it’s straightforwardly the conforming of our actions and attitudes toward our volitional acceptance and adoption of the Cross and the priorities of agape love to all those around us. Self-discipline is all about our relationship towards God, while asceticism seems to be all about ourselves: one does these things to him- or herself because the person is concerned about his or her own religious life.
The concerns of Dallas Willard do not emerge in times of danger: when the challenges of simply being faithful poses risks of physical harm in and of themselves, ascetic practices become rather unnecessary. In other words, asceticism becomes popular when the simple challenge of living faithfully become “boring”; when the daily challenge of practicing agape love fail to inspire; when the need to be religious trumps the imperative to act spiritually.
Well… I’m finally home and here long enough to read and comment on this article!
I was a member of the International Churches of Christ from 1998-2006. (In fact, I left on Halloween!) So I’m a result of the “or else” roughly a generation after Jay. As a member of “the Church of Christ on steroids”, a never ceasing call for increasing asceticism was required for us to become “true disciples” and to keep our salvation. Dallas Willard was held in high regard for his work on spiritual disciplines, although only three ultimately counted: evangelism, bible reading, and prayer (and sometimes fasting, which was usually a corporate activity). Even when the pulpit preached (even after Kip McKean left in late 2002) that we shouldn’t be so rigidly locked into our bible readings and prayer times, the expectation was that we would all have radical transformational quiet times daily. But it just wasn’t possible. The charade caved in enough in 2003 for many to leave, and for me to leave a few years after that.
Now that I’m an authentic Christian (I’m convinced that both the ICOC and Kip’s new ICC now clearly teach a different Jesus who can not save), I realize that these practices are useful only in the context of relationship with the Father through the Son empowered by the Spirit (Who is not an impersonal force… sorry Kip!) This makes all the difference between mindlessly practicing these activities and having them as an integral part of my relationship with God.
Jay: I didn’t know you came that close to the discipling movement! I’m assuming you were part of the Central Church of Christ in Huntsville? That’s the only Church of Christ I know of that was involved in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.
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Paul was very much about self-discipline, but note: self-discipline against sinful things and not self-discipline for the sake of self-discipline or being more holy. Prayer and fasting was expected of the saints back then, so they discussed it as if it is common and done. We teach prayer, but not fasting, which we should probably be doing, but not as a way to be saved, but rather as a way to connect to God more. Fasting is a thing that other denominations do, but it has a place in the saints life.
But it is interesting that the Pharisees came to Jesus and said of him that he had a demon in that He ate and drank and his disciples didn’t fast, but others fasted and John didn’t eat and drink. Jesus didn’t do or not do things just to do or not do them or be seen, but rather when they had real relevance at the moment of relevance.