On Renewal
In any case, by sanctification I mean the endeavor by which a person is sanctified or rendered holy. The endeavor is not one of the person so affected but, quite the contrary, is an effort of the Word of God, which elects the one made holy and which, I believe, offers similar election freely to every person.
To be more precise about it, sanctification is a reiteration of the act of creation in the Word of God. Thus sanctification refers to the activity of the historic Word God renewing human life (and all of created life) in the midst of the era of the fall, or during the present darkness, in which the power of death apparently reigns.
Holiness designates the essential condition of a person who confesses that he or she has suffered the renewal of his or her being, or selfhood, in the Word of God and is restored to wholeness as a human being. While there is an implication, in being holy, of incessant repentance there is no implication of perfection or of any superior moral status. Among humans, holiness may involve a relatively more profound experience of being human, but it does not indicate as such the exceptional or the extraordinary. To the contrary, holy connotes holistic in human life and, in that connection, the normal, the ordinary, the generic, the exemplary.
I am aware, of course, that sanctification is ridiculed and holiness is belittled—and the saints are defamed and scandalized—when especial moral worth or purity or achievement is imputed to being holy. This is in reality a condescension of those conformed to the world, their form of dismissal, an excuse for others to cop out in a manner which pretends to recognize and flatter the saints.
William Stringfellow, The Politics of Spirituality
In any case, by sanctification I mean the endeavor by which a person is sanctified or rendered holy. The endeavor is not one of the person so affected but, quite the contrary, is an effort of the Word of God, which elects the one made holy and which, I believe, offers similar election freely to every person.
To be more precise about it, sanctification is a reiteration of the act of creation in the Word of God. Thus sanctification refers to the activity of the historic Word God renewing human life (and all of created life) in the midst of the era of the fall, or during the present darkness, in which the power of death apparently reigns.
Holiness designates the essential condition of a person who confesses that he or she has suffered the renewal of his or her being, or selfhood, in the Word of God and is restored to wholeness as a human being. While there is an implication, in being holy, of incessant repentance there is no implication of perfection or of any superior moral status. Among humans, holiness may involve a relatively more profound experience of being human, but it does not indicate as such the exceptional or the extraordinary. To the contrary, holy connotes holistic in human life and, in that connection, the normal, the ordinary, the generic, the exemplary.
I am aware, of course, that sanctification is ridiculed and holiness is belittled—and the saints are defamed and scandalized—when especial moral worth or purity or achievement is imputed to being holy. This is in reality a condescension of those conformed to the world, their form of dismissal, an excuse for others to cop out in a manner which pretends to recognize and flatter the saints.
William Stringfellow, The Politics of Spirituality
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