Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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realizes his own utter helplessness. After giving up all
hope for changing himself or reaching God in human
strength, one then allows himself (in 'faith') to be
"grasped by and turned to the infinite." As Tillich
preached,
We, the ministers and teachers of Christianity,
do not call you to Christianity but rather to
the New Being to which Christianity should be a
witness and nothing else, not confusing itself
with that New Being. Forget all Christian
doctrines; forget your own certainties and your
own doubts, when you hear the call of Jesus.
Forget all Christian morals, your achievements
and your failures, when you come to Him.
Nothing is demanded of you--no idea of God, and
no goodness in yourselves, not your being
religious, not your being Christian, not your
being wise, and not your being moral. But what
is demanded is only your being open and willing
to accept what is given to you, the New Being,
the being of love and justice and truth, as it
is manifest in Him Whose yoke is easy and Whose
burden is light.
Similarly, Tillich summarized the gospel when, in another
sermon, he proclaimed, "Simply accept the fact that you
are accepted." Preaching that 'Gospel' enables the
hearers' reception of God's life-transforming 'grace'.
In order to serve its purpose, preaching must meet
two standards.
A theological system (What Tillich wrote here
concerning theology is equally true of
preaching.] is supposed to satisfy two basic
needs: the statement of the truth of the
Christian message and the interpretation of
this truth for every new generation. Theology
moves back and forth between two poles, the
eternal truth of its foundation and the
temporal situation in which the eternal truth
must be received.
Tillich subsequently detailed this tenet as "the
method of correlation
e Using this method,