Ecclesiology II: Cynicism and the Gospel

3 Lent
+Gregory the Illuminator

"... cynicism has become the primary virtue of U.S. public life. Cynicism ensures that there's absolutely nothing worth dedicating one's life to in a way that totally encompasses it. One always wants to be able to disassociate oneself from one's engagements at any given moment."

Stanley Hauerwas, "Christianity: It's Not a Religion: It's an Adventure" (1991), in The Hauerwas Reader.

If this is true (and I don't think the point is a controversial one), does the truth of the Gospel offer freedom from this? It surely will come as no shock to you, but I believe deeply that it is the fact of the Church itself that enables us to appropriate and live into the truth of the Gospel and be healed from our cynicism. More on that as I write it...

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