Cheap Grace: Enemy of Discipleship

This post revisits a topic I blogged about some time ago: Cheap Grace. In fact (here's a bit of Paradoxology trivia for you), my original post on Cheap Grace continues to receive more "hits" (by far) than anything else I've written about.

But what has me revisiting Dietrich Bonhoeffer's concept of cheap grace, is some studying I'm currently doing on the re-emergence of discipleship as an essential for normative Christian living. The current reality is this: being a "Christian" and being a "disciple" have become two very different things.

The downside of Protestantism (and perhaps even more, Evangelicalism) has been a misunderstanding (and a cheapening) of grace. As Bonhoeffer has pointed out:

“[At the dawning of the Protestant Reformation] Luther had said that grace alone can save; his followers took up his doctrine and repeated it word for word. But they left out its invariable corollary, the obligation of discipleship… [Subsequently] the upshot of it all is that my only duty [then] as a Christian is… to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are forgiven. I need no longer try to follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship, which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from [all] that.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship. London: SCM Press LTD, 1959, pp. 41-42.

Maybe it was modernity's worship of empirical truth, and the avoidance of both-and realities, which contributed to the cheapening of grace. For Bonhoeffer, grace was expensive -- which is what gives grace it's incredible value to us.

“Having laid hold on cheap grace, they were barred for ever from the knowledge of costly grace. Deceived and weakened, men felt that they were strong now that they were in possession of this cheap grace – whereas they had in fact lost the power to live the life of discipleship and obedience. The word of cheap grace has been the ruin of more Christians than any commandment of works.” -- Ibid., p. 46.

The Christian-culture-at-large is certainly grace-soaked. And why not? We LOVE grace! It's empowering, affirming, and fits nicely with society's bent toward radical egalitarianism (i.e. the equality of outcomes rather than of opportunities). Despite scriptures prohibition not to do so (e.g. Rom. 6:1), more often than not we somehow convince ourselves that grace gives us permission to live life on our own terms, all-the-while knowing that our eternal destiny is "in the bag." This kind of thinking is further reinforced by a popular Christology that differentiates between the Saviorhood of Jesus and his Lordship. These were never meant to be disconnected. Salvation and discipleship were synonomous in the teachings of Jesus. This was the reality for the kingdom of God.

Much is being said of late concerning the importance of discipleship, of following Jesus. In order for this to happen, will we have to adjust our thinking as it relates to the role of grace? Bonhoeffer seems to suggest that this is the case.

What are your thoughts?

Comments

[DLE]

I first read The Cost of Discipleship around 1983 and it cemented in me the idea that following Jesus has a real cost--and in areas of our spiritual life we take for granted.

Everything you have written here is dead-on. Hyper-dispensationalism has elevated grace to idol status. Bonhoeffer was prescient in his assessment of the Western Church, probably foreseeing our current age better than most.

I am convinced that if churches in America started preaching on the cost of discipleship, we'd lose at least half the people in the seats. I know about going after the one sheep, but if that means that we sacrifice our preaching and our teaching so as not to offend that one sheep, then we have missed the rest of the Scriptures, and done a disservice to the other ninety-nine.

We have got to start asking something of people. We never speak of holiness, never talk about laying down our lives (I mean REALLY laying down our lives, not just vowing to watch less TV or actually tithing), and for leaders, not thinking about deepening the lives of the people we already have in our congregations. If that drives people away, then we must NOT feel we have failed. Jesus did not make conclusions about the efficacy of the sower's sowing, though only one in four made it. We either trust God to bring people to Himself or we rely on our own strength, but we simply cannot let down the minority who do come to Jesus by encouraging them to half-baked discipleship.

There are many foes of "Lordship Salvation" in the Western Church today. I was a true mugwump on that issue. But not in the last half dozen years. Jesus asks everything we are and we are not to try to recover what we surrender to Him. Real disciples understand that grace not only cost Jesus His life, but ours as well.

[Chris (DesertPastor)]

Superb insights, Dan!

"Real disciples understand that grace not only cost Jesus His life, but ours as well.
"
This grates against our human nature. We want to be affirmed for just who we are, not told that we must die to ourselves.

"I am convinced that if churches in America started preaching on the cost of discipleship, we'd lose at least half the people in the seats."

I so want this to not be true!