Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, January 2009

tendency to divorce spirituality from morality. My task is to think constructively about how these aspects of Christian life can be brought together under a vision of the kingdom of God which maintains that the ethical teachings of the Sermon on the Mount can and indeed ought to be practiced by all Christians. At the heart of this claim is the notion that morality is embodied spirituality 10 and that therefore discipleship refers to the practical moral outworking of an inner process of spiritual formation which takes place at the deepest level of human character and identity. 11 1 am aided in my task by many who have probed deeply into the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount and who have provided practical and conceptual models which continue to enhance our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in the contemporary context. The two most valuable guides have been Glen Stassen and James McClendon, who in this essay I will bring into dialogue with each other. My aim is to build on their insights in order to develop a vision of how the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount can be used today as a resource for healthy spiritual formation and discipleship. The argument throughout will be that the Sermon is indeed a realistic resource for such a vision which corresponds to the implied critical argument that any attempt to argue to the contrary constitutes an unwarranted attempt to evade the duty of obedience to the teachings of Christ. 2. Transforming Initiatives’, ‘Powerful Practices’ and the Kingdom Vision: Stassen and McClendon in Conversation Glen Stassen of Fuller Theological Seminary has been at the forefront of recent efforts to understand the relevance of the moral teachings of the Sermon on the Mount for the life of Jesus’ contemporary followers. For 9 G. Stassen, Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1999), p. 33. cf. G. Stassen and D. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 133. 10 I am indebted to my teacher. Dr P. Parushev, for this insight. 11 James McClendon uses the word ‘convictions’ to describe those ‘gusty beliefs that I live out’ which are an integral part of human self-identity. See, J. W. McClendon, Jr, Systematic Theology: Volume I: Ethics (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), p. 22. 12 The seriousness with which Stassen takes the problem of the neglect of Christian ethicists to use the Sermon on the Mount as a practical guide for living is seen by the fact that the preface to his major work on Christian ethics, which he co-authored with David Gushee, has the subtitle ‘The Problem: The Evasion of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount’ (Kingdom Ethics, xi-xvi). For Stassen it seems that the evasion of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon constitutes one of the most significant failures of contemporary Christian ethics. Stassen and Gushee regret that in their survey of