{"id":521,"date":"2009-06-20T22:23:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-20T22:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/cheap-grace.html"},"modified":"2009-06-20T22:23:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-20T22:23:00","slug":"cheap-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/06\/cheap-grace.html","title":{"rendered":"Cheap grace?"},"content":{"rendered":"

That’s what you might call the redemptive qualities some young women are evidently finding in faith, according to Peter Steinfels’ latest column in New York Times<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Dear Jillian,<\/p>\n

Please forgive the first-name greeting, but it seems the proper way to reply to your \u201cHi Peter\u201d e-mail message of June 4.<\/p>\n

What was surprising was not the informality of your note \u2014 everyone knows that for public relations folks, journalists are on an automatic first-name basis \u2014 but that it came from Marie Claire magazine. Fashion writing has not loomed large in this column.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s hard economic times,\u201d you helpfully explained, \u201chave a profound effect not only on our bank accounts but on our sense of hope and psychological well-being,\u201d an insight, you must admit, that has not escaped millions of Americans, to count only those who still have bank accounts.<\/p>\n

Still, you announced that it had inspired an article in the current issue of Marie Claire featuring accounts by \u201cfive modern career gals\u201d of \u201chow their belief in faith helped them through the hardest of struggles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The article is titled \u201cCheaper Than Therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of faith as therapy, you probably know, is not exactly new. Fifty years ago, Norman Vincent Peale preached the power of positive thinking, and Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen insisted that the Roman Catholic confessional was more effective than the psychoanalyst\u2019s couch. And the language of healing, both physical and psychological, is prominent in many religious traditions.<\/p>\n

Still, you should anticipate the objection that promoting religion as bargain-basement therapy is something of a category mistake, like publishing someone\u2019s account of voting under the banner \u201cMore Engrossing Than Sudoku\u201d or trumpeting romance as \u201cJuicier Than Fish Sticks\u201d or describing the joys of cooking as \u201cFaster Than Gardening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the word \u201ccheap.\u201d It doesn\u2019t appear a lot elsewhere in these pages. This is not to complain about the items surrounding your article about the effect of today\u2019s hard economic times on our sense of hope \u2014 the $4,100 skirt or the $4,995 dress or the $1,250 clutch or the $315 diamond-dust-based body treatment at one spa or the $250 head-to-toe feng shui scrub-down and massage at another.<\/p>\n

After all, Marie Claire also features what it calls \u201csteals\u201d and \u201cbest buys,\u201d although nothing that is \u201ccheaper,\u201d except of course faith. Be warned, however. Some grump will probably write you about the best-known religious use of \u201ccheap\u201d in recent times. It occurs in the opening sentence of \u201cThe Cost of Discipleship,\u201d by the Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed for his role in a plot to assassinate Hitler.<\/p>\n

\u201cCheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church,\u201d Bonhoeffer wrote. \u201cWe are fighting today for costly grace.\u201d Perhaps your \u201cfive modern career gals\u201d are too young to have heard of Bonhoeffer; otherwise they might have felt nervous about their tendency to treat religious faith like comfort food or a fashion accessory. Tell them not to worry. Bonhoeffer was the kind of guy who wouldn\u2019t know a Manolo Blahnik from a Vera Wang.<\/p>\n

What remains puzzling, though, is exactly what their belief had to do with \u201ctoday\u2019s hard economic times\u201d or how it \u201chelped them through the hardest of struggles.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Check the link to read the rest<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s what you might call the redemptive qualities some young women are evidently finding in faith, according to Peter Steinfels’ latest column in New York Times: Dear Jillian, Please forgive the first-name greeting, but it seems the proper way to reply to your \u201cHi Peter\u201d e-mail message of June 4. 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