Karmic Christianity

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Karmic Christianity

Finding Peace by Faith Alone

E. D. Burns

Resting in the Refuge of God's Love

All people struggle with fear. Perhaps a child has a life-threatening illness. Your spouse loses a job, and you don’t know how bills will get paid. We wonder whether tough times indicate that God is not pleased with us. To regain assurance and peace, we try harder to please God and attain blessings. We can too easily fall into a karmic-like cycle of good works, relying on our own power to break the cycle of fear.

In Karmic Christianity, E. D. Burns explains why the antidote to fear is not power but rather peace— God’s peace. The peace of Christ sets us free from anxiety arising from hardships and our inability to control our situations. Lasting peace is not grounded in subjective experience. Instead, Christ secures it for us by his death and resurrection.

If we’re honest, we know that our best is never good enough. We are frequently powerlessness to change our circumstances. Burns shows why the solution is not working harder, being better, or just giving up. Readers learn why we don't need to be exhausted. Instead, we can rest in God’s refuge, trusting that his love for us is perfect in Christ.

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Endorsements

Here are our options set before us: Option 1: Assurance in Christ. Rest in the Redeemer. Confidently trusting the Lord Jesus. Serving the Lord with joy. Option 2: “Treadmill” living. Running back to Mt. Sinai. Cringing obedience. Doubting introspection. E. D. Burns proclaims Option 1 as the right response to the work of the Great High Priest, and he also zeroes in on the biblical view of the love of God. Such love, Burns argues, from the Triune God, motivates grateful and godly living. Duplex Gratia, or the “double grace” of Jesus Christ, namely “Christ FOR us” and “Christ IN us,” permeate Burns’s pen, resulting in a book that compels the reader to keep reading.

Mike AbendrothPastor, Bethlehem Bible Church, West Boylston, MAHost, No Compromise Radio
This is a book that quite literally belongs in the hands of all believers. Every Christian has either encountered this way of thinking in others, or even more likely, been plagued themselves with such thoughts of a quid-pro-quo relationship with God. Dr. Burns brings a stout assurance to believers of a right relationship with God, by stripping away the infection of “karmic Christianity” and the prosperity gospel, in turn, pointing us all to the singular hope that is found by faith alone in Christ alone. Like a bright afternoon sun, it burns away the fog of fear, bondage, and groveling servitude. May this book be used to bring freedom and a resting assurance to myriads of precious saints whom Satan would seek to afflict with karma’s lies.

Brian Fairchild, DMinPastor, Colonial Bible Church, Midland, TXDirector, The Academy for Expository PreachingOnePassion Ministries, Dallas, TX
With experience, clarity, and familiar examples, Burns explains a common thought that can affect many of us in our faith, life, and service. The book moves between well-researched insights and application. This book is not just about how others get it wrong, but it presents help for each of us to see how we might set ourselves up for unnecessary disappointment and exhaustion. The reader is led from thinking, “if I—then God,” to seeing and resting in the real, constant blessings from God.

Ingebjorg Nandrup, MThAssistant Professor, Fjellhaug International University College, Oslo, Norway
In Karmic Christianity, E. D. Burns skillfully unmasks the deeper script that informs so much of evangelical Christianity today. While confessing the good news of grace-alone-by-faith-alone, far too many believers lapse into thinking that, ultimately, the “skeleton key” that guarantees success in the Christian life is, “enoughness”; intending well-enough, being good-enough, and working hard-enough. What attracts us to imagine that such a “karmic” transaction is the means to secure God’s approval? I commend this book to the global church as a wake-up call to a pervasive and disturbing reality.

Ivor Poobalan, PhDPrincipal, Colombo Theological Seminary, Sri LankaCo-Chair of the Theology Working Group, Lausanne Movement
All too many people today are paralyzed by the counterfeit claims of Karmic Christianity. E. D. Burns seeks to correct these distortions of a transactional and contractual understanding with the liberating message of grace and faith in Jesus Christ. This helpful work can transform a person’s anxiety about the spiritual life into assurance through resting in and living by God’s promises.

Tom Schwanda, PhDAssociate Professor Emeritus of Christian Formation and Ministry, Wheaton College