DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
How would you summarize the information in this chapter in one or more sentences?
What statement by Bishop Carder really spoke to your mind or heart as very important for us to understand and remember?
RESOURCES
This discussion is on a chapter from Living Our Beliefs: The United Methodist Way, by Kenneth Carder (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2009). This book is available from Cokesbury.com, Amazon.com and other sources.
Discussion Questions:
1. It is in our response to God’s grace that defines our relationship to being made in His image.
2. “A major threat to our identity as persons made in the divine image is economics and the market logic of exchange.” God is not a commodity to be marketed but is a gift freely given. Pope Francis said it best recently, “The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase….. A culture develops that “rules rather than serves.” “Such is the essence of sin!”
Discussion Questions:
1. It is in our response to God’s grace that defines our relationship to being made in His image.
2. “A major threat to our identity as persons made in the divine image is economics and the market logic of exchange.” God is not a commodity to be to be marketed but is a gift freely given. Pope Francis said it best recently….”The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase.” We become a culture which “rules rather than serves.” “Such is the essence of sin.”
1. A summary of this chapter is that identity, beliefs, values, behavior, attitudes and goals of human beings are shaped and molded by their experiences and significant relationships including family, friends, and God.
2. “Being created in God’s image has to do primarily with relationship rather than with inherent qualities within human beings.” (p. 58)
1. We are created in the divine image of God however it is our world today that distorts and devalues that image, our identity and relationship with the Triune God. We live far below our means as a Child of God.
2. “The image of God in human beings is rooted in grace – God’s unmerited, undeserved love. Our status as children of God is nothing we have or could earn. It is a gift bestowed, not an achievement reached. Self-identity and relationships, therefore, operate by the logic of grace rather than the logic of exchange and merit.