All Things Seen & Unseen

The Great Divide in Australia is a term for a range of mountains separating the Eastern Australian coastline from the outback. This range is the third largest in the world. The Great Dividing Range is a fitting metaphor for The Great Divide (the sacred-secular divide) in Christian consciousness and action exposed in a 30-page booklet written by Mark Greene of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (licc) ( http://www.licc.org.uk/ ). The Sacred-Secular Divide (the SSD) Greene seems to assume we all know what the SSD is. I'm not so sure.  In any case to put it briefly, it is the deep division, between things regarded as sacred : morals, prayer, church attendance, Lord's Day, bible studies, serving in the church, church worship, evangelising 1 ; as opposed to secular (profan e) things such a work, school, univ ersity, recr eation, holidays, clubs, TV, novels, politics, or dinary family matters, gardening , and workaday week . Of course, a legitima...

Introduction Last time we examined Free Grace Theology (FGT) and how, according to this theology, we receive salvation . FGT maintains that we receive it on the basis of belief-in-Christ alone. Significantly, FGT distinguishes be tween the 'call to believe' and the 'call to follow' (see Free Grace Theology ) arguing that for salvation it is only necessary to believe on the Lord Jesus (e.g., Acts 16.31), that is, to answer the 'call to believe'. Lordship Salvation In opposition to FGT is Lordship Salvation (LS) 1 which believes that the 'call to follow' Jesus Christ is part and parcel of the 'call to believe' (Matt 28.19-20; Rom 1.5, 16.26; etc). LS is convinced that discipleship is an inherent part of true belief in Christ as Lo rd . Hence, o ne of the major teachings of LS is that being saved-by-grace-through-faith is always followed by works (Eph 2.8-10; Jas 2.17-20). The two (belief, a nd good works) will inevitably go together b...