Have you ever wondered what Anglo-Catholics think about imputed and imparted righteousness? Or what in the world the whole debate was about? Well, Fr. Wesley Walker has a great article over at Conciliar Post that gives an overview of the problem and some interesting resolutions.
When these two views are absolutized, they risk turning into caricatures: the Reformed cannot seem to account for sanctification, and the Catholics seem legalistic and preoccupied with works. However, one cannot argue from caricatures, and both camps are more theologically complex than our preconceived biases might allow us to admit (one can see the New Finnish Interpretation of Luther as a solid example of this). Still, the question remains: how do we understand the Christian life—a resting in God’s pronouncement of us based on an alien righteousness, or a cooperation with grace based on a process of becoming? Even more fundamentally, perhaps, what does baptism do to us?
Fr. Sean McDermott is Curate at All Saints Anglican Church and Editor-in-Chief of Earth & Altar.
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