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Embracing Godly Character: The Christian Community’s Response to a Godless Culture
Parenting can be overwhelming.
So much of our world threatens and challenges the faith of the next generation. But don’t despair—instead, respond by embracing godly character in your home and community.
Embracing godly character means exploring how to center our lives on God’s Word and promises. Parents and other faith leaders within the Christian community are critical in raising godly families, and Embracing Godly Character will begin a conversation around the role that character formation plays in equipping the next generation to stand firm in the faith.
So much of our world threatens and challenges the faith of the next generation. But don’t despair—instead, respond by embracing godly character in your home and community.
Embracing godly character means exploring how to center our lives on God’s Word and promises. Parents and other faith leaders within the Christian community are critical in raising godly families, and Embracing Godly Character will begin a conversation around the role that character formation plays in equipping the next generation to stand firm in the faith.
263 pages, Paperback
Published March 20, 2018
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October 12, 2019
This is a good, solid look--from a Lutheran perspective--at instilling character. I cannot say that it provided any revelatory insights for me, but I also cannot say that I found anything amiss with what was presented. Kremer is concerned with providing a simple, gentle discussion for parents to help them consider the importance of developing their children's character. He does, I think, see the urgency of our cultural dissolution as much as an author such as Anthony Esolen or Rod Dreher, but Kremer is very intentional to keep Gospel predominant and to avidly avoid any works-righteousness.
The equation of "Character = Identity + Performance" is central to Kremer's thinking, and as he unpacks what he means, it does seem to be a useful way to consider how we as Christians ought to think about character development so as to avoid the pitfall of moralism. We must understand who and whose we are, and virtuous deeds will flow forth from that knowledge. Reversing the order is deadly.
A number of sections of the Embracing Godly Character basically retell and draw lessons from various biblical stories. I appreciated the biblical grounding. Most of the stories were very familiar to me, so the extended retelling did feel a bit unnecessary. I also struggle to accept interpolations onto biblical characters of what they must have been thinking or why they must have done something. Luther and many others have broadly employed this technique, though, so it may just be my 21st-century skepticism overreacting.
Kremer obviously invested a good deal of research on his topic. His enthusiasm spills over into copious footnotes that he uses to prevent getting off topic in the main body of the book. I had to curtail my avid footnote reading propensity at some point because it was interrupting my ability to follow the main text! In a few places the research seemed to limit rather than inform Kremer's own writing. I wish he could have taken us deeper in those places by mentioning his sources more briefly and then providing his own insights, rather than simply summarizing for us.
Perhaps my minor disappointments with this book should just remind me that Lutherans do not engage in 10-step-program methods of addressing cultural ills, moral development, or anything else. At the very least, this book whetted my appetite to do more reading and thinking about the intersection of Lutheran theology and character formation.
The equation of "Character = Identity + Performance" is central to Kremer's thinking, and as he unpacks what he means, it does seem to be a useful way to consider how we as Christians ought to think about character development so as to avoid the pitfall of moralism. We must understand who and whose we are, and virtuous deeds will flow forth from that knowledge. Reversing the order is deadly.
A number of sections of the Embracing Godly Character basically retell and draw lessons from various biblical stories. I appreciated the biblical grounding. Most of the stories were very familiar to me, so the extended retelling did feel a bit unnecessary. I also struggle to accept interpolations onto biblical characters of what they must have been thinking or why they must have done something. Luther and many others have broadly employed this technique, though, so it may just be my 21st-century skepticism overreacting.
Kremer obviously invested a good deal of research on his topic. His enthusiasm spills over into copious footnotes that he uses to prevent getting off topic in the main body of the book. I had to curtail my avid footnote reading propensity at some point because it was interrupting my ability to follow the main text! In a few places the research seemed to limit rather than inform Kremer's own writing. I wish he could have taken us deeper in those places by mentioning his sources more briefly and then providing his own insights, rather than simply summarizing for us.
Perhaps my minor disappointments with this book should just remind me that Lutherans do not engage in 10-step-program methods of addressing cultural ills, moral development, or anything else. At the very least, this book whetted my appetite to do more reading and thinking about the intersection of Lutheran theology and character formation.
Displaying 1 of 1 review