sola fidei

One of my classes is Theology, Ethics & Spirituality. We have been reading chronologically through church history, starting with the desert Fathers and reaching Bonhoeffer this week. Each week we write a dense, one-page paper (300 words) summarising one feature of the particular author's spirituality. Here is an excerpt from my paper on Luther. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it here it is, unedited.

"I suggest that a common problem between Luther’s day and ours is the temptation toward self-making. In Luther’s age of monarchical power, self-making took the shape of conforming oneself to authority – the abbot or pope commanded and one obeyed, and this obedience accrued merit as congruity or condignity. In our time, the corollary of democratic, capitalist society is consumer spirituality. Today, the temptation of self-making is evident in the way we construct our self-identities through the products we buy, the jobs we perform, the books we read etc. We are then also tempted toward self-healing (or salvation) through the relationships we enter, and the philosophical outlook we take, and the causes we take up. Luther’s reminder would be that “no external thing has any influence in producing Christian righteousness.” Self-making leaves one none the wiser as to the outcome of one’s ultimate future. The only solution available is to take the risk that perhaps God’s promises in Christ may be true. This risk involves necessarily a denial that one’s project of self-making will be the final word for personal salvation – faith relativizes self-making."