Mark Galli is a Christian author, former Presbyterian minister and managing editor at Christianity Today. He holds there a biweekly online column called SoulWork. His latest book is titled Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God.
Marks writing is crisp and often surprising. He always has an edge, like any good prophet.
About a week ago I was sending my colleagues in World Vision his article ‘Point of Crisis, Point of Grace‘, on the topic of transformation, that is essential for the core thinking of our organisation.
Today I have sent them a new text of Mark on the same general topic. It is called ‘Are We Transformed Yet?’ and it deals with the narcissistic tendency of many Evangelicals to analyse and admire their own (often illusionary) spiritual transformation.
Here is just a fragment, to wet you appetite:
There is one paragraph I find in many, many books that cross my desk. Let me save writers and publishers the trouble of crafting and editing that paragraph, and offer boilerplate copy they can adapt:
When it comes to transformed lives, evangelicals are no different than the surrounding culture. [Insert stat about divorce rates or other stat here]. As [insert name here] says, “[Insert quote from well-known conservative culture critic here].” It’s time we started living the faith we profess, walking the talk, [insert another cliché here]. If we aren’t transformed, how will we ever transform the world? And the reason we’re not transformed is because [insert theme of this book here].
Persona 
am creat o religie care in loc sa cheme oamenii la cristos, i-a chemat sa fie sau cel putin sa se pretinda perfecti.
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This guy seems to be a perfectionist. This ‘little’ heresy (I say ‘little’ because some readers are allergic to this term) promotes a ridiculous view of sin and, as a consequence, makes a joke of God’s perfect holiness.
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“…he is Clear if someone continues in Sin and is a slave to Sin he cannot be a child of God. Momentary lapses do not fall under this category.”
I posted here a part of someone’s comment on the original article as a sample of how can logic (or the lack of it) be put in the service of the prejudices. The author of the comment didn’t go further to explain what “momentary lapses” exactly are: is sinning every two weeks more acceptable than sinning every two seconds for example? When someone is sinning for two minutes one time is it a momentary lapses or a prolonged one? And so on
On the subject of the main article: a very good and interesting point in putting the presenting of the personal transformation statement under the category of good deeds which are recommended to be done in decent, quiet, humble manner.
Personnaly I can’t find too many spiritual activities (if any) that are better done “from the top of the mountain” so to speak.
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