More quotes from Michael Gorman's Reading Paul. Personally, I like Gorman's idea of story. That is, our life is shaped by Christ's story, and our life is to be a living story for the world to see. These stories all centre on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Christian ethics is the resurrection power of the justifying, cruciform, three-in-one God expressing itself as the sign of the cross in daily life. (p. 130)
[The church's] mission... is to be a living commentary on the gospel it professes, the story of the Lord (Jesus) in whom the church exists and who lives within the assembly. (See especially Phil 2:1-15.)... This countercultural community is not produced by human effort, nor does it occur to perfection overnight; it is a process of divine activity and communal and personal transformation (e.g. Rom 12:1-2; 1 Thess 3:11-13; 5:23-28). To be holy is to be different, different from those outside the church and different from the way we used to be, changed from what was "then" to what is "now" (Gal 4:8-9;1 Cor 6:9-11; Eph 2:1-6; Col 3:1-7). (p. 134)
Cruciformity is cross-shaped existence in Christ. It is letting the cross be the shape, as well as the source, of life in Christ. It is participating in and embodying the cross. It may also be described, more technically, as non-identical repetition, by the power of the Spirit, of the narrative of Christ's self-giving faith and love that was quintessentially expressed in his incarnation and death on the cross. It is, therefore, a narrative spirituality, a spirituality that tells a story, the story of Christ crucified. (pp. 146-7)
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