Cheap Grace.

According to Dietrich Bonhoeffer* the problem with the Church is that too many of its parishioners practise Cheap Grace.

Cheap Grace, he says, is the grace that is conferred through Jesus Christ that has no reciprocal change or action. 

Its practitioners merely live their lives as everyone else does and don't think twice about it.

This is not good enough.

Discipleship requires Costly Grace which is grace that inspires real change in our outlook and behavior.

We cannot continue to give token charity to the poor while spending 95% of our money on ourselves.

And we cannot continue to mouth the words and sing the hymns of worship while living our lives as if they didn't exist.

This was the problem with the Church in the 1950s, and it is still the problem with the Church today.

And if nothing is done about it the Church will die. 

(*Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian who was executed by Hitler in 1944.)

Photo Credit: Dietrich Bonhoeffer.