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

part will test the hypothesis by examining the ways in which these findings relate to the actual process of spiritual formation. 3. Discipleship as the Embodiment of the Kingdom Vision Having used the ideas of Stassen and McClendon to construct a synthetic understanding of how the Sermon might be used as a living resource for discipleship and healthy spiritual formation, it is now time to revert back to the aforementioned definition of morality as ‘embodied spirituality’. Since discipleship involves a process of learning to participate in the life of the kingdom of God as it is described by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, it follows that discipleship can be defined as the embodiment of the vision of the kingdom of God, which Jesus himself personified. This idea points to a central idea of the spiritual life - that the moral life of a disciple is guided 42 Ibid., p. 301-324. 43 Ibid., p. 309. 44 See, Stassen, Just Peacemaking. 47 Is the Sermon on the Mount too unrealistic to serve as a resource for Christian Discipleship and Spiritual Formation? primarily not by reason, but by a vision, 45 and that virtue is acquired not solely through contemplation but also by participating in practices which aim towards the telos of human life. 46 The moral force of a vision consists in the potential for it to be hermeneutically reappropriated to a contemporary context in such a way as to provide a framework for spiritual growth which is derived directly from the teachings of Jesus. Such a vision has normative claims because it is based on the authority of Scripture itself, which, as McClendon’s says, is no less ‘God speaking’. 47 Furthermore, according to the logic of the baptist vision, it is clear that McClendon takes the view that Jesus’ words are addressed as directly to today’s followers as they were to Jesus’ original hearers. McClendon’s apparent lack (in his three-volume Systematic Theology ) of any mention of the normative value of the practices which give substance to the vision, is to some extent supplied by some of his more occasional writings. In a series of sermons published under the title, Making Gospel Sense, McClendon begins to apply (albeit in a vestigial way) normative categories to some of the inferences he draws from the teachings of the Scriptures. 48 For instance, in addressing a troubled church in which the relations ‘between the pastor and some members... had reached breaking point’, 49 McClendon spoke of what he called ‘the practice of forgiveness’. 50 Even though McClendon does not use such vocabulary, it is nevertheless implied in his argument that the practice of loving and forgiving a sinning church member is ‘normatively binding’ because it is, as he puts it, ‘the Rule of Christ’. 51 Although he takes a passage from Genesis 50 as his point of departure, he cites the practice, referred to by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, of making peace with one’s neighbour before b