This (Mortal) Christian Life: Growth in Grace and the Problem of Senescence

Abstract Theological accounts of the Christian life attempt to describe the manner in which the Holy Spirit's communication of Christ's redemptive work engenders new ways of being in the world. Such descriptions normally entail, in one form or another, the conclusion that the Christian life is marked by progressive growth in grace, an upward spiral in which we increasingly attain godliness as our lives unfold. Yet all too often such accounts fail to attend to the manner in which human life unfolds in the context of the devastation, one in which the sting of death continues to exercise a kind of tyranny over the human subject. Building on the work of Kathleen Wallace and around the Christian rite of baptism, this article raises and attends to the “problem of senescence,” arguing that given our frailty and mortality, it is better to understand the Christian life not primarily as progressive but as a cumulative offering wherein baptism prospectively and retrospectively offers the Christian's life to the Lord.