If God is Love

I don't believe in grace.

S'okay - it believes in you....

That's a good way of looking at it. By the way, the author's name is James Mulholland and he is a Quaker Universalist.

Hey, want to tell more about it? It sounds interesting...

I'm kind of tired, so please excuse me if my grammar is not perfect here.

The book is basically about how to apply grace in a modern world. He uses his belief that God is committed to saving each and every person to explain why it is important to be gracious. Basically, the book is about living as Jesus lived rather than focusing on the importance of "accepting Jesus into your heart as the way to salvation." If God has made a commitment to save each and every one of us, then it is not about whether or not you made an Altar Call to accept Jesus Christ, but it is about putting your faith (whatever that may be) into action.

He doesn't say that Jesus Christ is the only way because his message implies that there is more than one "way". But he does assert that he still believes in Jesus Christ as a savior even though he believes we all are saved (he justifies this claim better than I can in summary, so if you want to know more, you can find the book at Barnes and Noble and at Amazon.com; I imagine it is a bit new to have shown up in your local public library yet). Basically, he explains that Jesus preached about loving one another, not just neighbors but enemies as well. And if he commanded us to love our enemies, than God must not be as judgemental as traditional Christianity would have us believe.

He puts this into a practical format by applying his beliefs about grace into everyday situations like "living graciously", "gracious politics", "gracious economics", "gracious religion", "gracious Christianity", etcetera.

It is a bit more complicated than that. But if I had to turn his whole book into one sentence, it would be, "Live graciously, as Jesus taught us, by loving your neighbor as well as your enemy; don't live ungraciously, by passing judgement on others based upon your preconceived notions about heaven and hell."

It's an easy read, and I highly recommend it. I don't agree with everything he argues. But he is educated and it is thought-provoking at the very least.

Wow that book sounds interesting.

Only Christians believe in "grace".

Don't non-christians believe that people can be "gracious"? The concept of spiritual "grace" is just God exercising mercy and altruism in the same way (in an arguably better way) as humans do when they are being "gracious".