Holiness

Where does holiness figure into your own spiritual walk?

Holiness is a topic I bat around in my mind quite often. Obviously, I’m for it. But I’m not always sure what form it should take and by which path it should be sought. I’ve seen outside-in holiness from the fundamentalist’s camp. I’ve seen inside-out holiness from the reformed camp. But both seem to lack something.

Rules and regulations so often prove ineffective. The desert fathers learned this lesson. You can take the monk out of the world, but you cannot take the world out of the monk. On the flip side, the stereotypical beer drinking, cigar smoking neo-calvinist seems irreverent to me. It seems both camps get rightly accused of misstepping, but I digress…

What got me thinking about this again is Kevin Deyoung’s recent article. In it he writes, “It’s not pietism, legalism, or fundamentalism to take holiness seriously.” Agreed. So how can the church preach holiness without drifting into one of these camps?