The End of the Christian Life
This fall, Katie went back to seminary as part of a distance MA program. In October, we spent a few days in Holland, Michigan, for her course intensive with J. Todd Billings. Western Theological Seminary is an excellent academic institution, but even more importantly, we’re discovering that it’s a top-notch community of women and men. During our precious few days there, it really felt that we were among our people, something we do not take for granted at this stage of our lives.
Unlike Katie, I didn’t take the class with Dr. Billings, but I did get to eat hot dogs in his driveway. And we had a brief conversation about one particular passage in The End of the Christian Life: How Embracing Our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live (Brazos), a book full of memorable passages. I’ll be thinking about what he said—and the manner in which he said it—for years to come. And I’ll be returning again and again to this joyful, hopeful book about embracing our finitude, written by an author who lives within his limits, day by day.
“Joy is not found in living as if we are immortal—or in a universe that always conforms to our wishes. Joy is found in giving ourselves away, in all of our temporal and crumbling weakness . . . We experience joy when we turn toward the wounds of our mortal limits, leaping into the arms of the living Lord, offering our bodies back to God as temples, hoping for the return of Christ, who is our life. He will appear on the final day and make things right.”
