Some people may have a perception of Christianity that it must be overwhelmingly polite and "nice." This is certainly not the case.
Moralism is never satisfied. When you believe that the important things in life depend on your own effort, including how God views you and treats you, you can never do enough.
The problem with moralism is that it twists the whole Bible in a subtle but profound way into an exercise in being a good person to experience a good life.
I have found in nearly two decades of work as a pastor that it I run into moralism so often in working with people that I feel confident saying it is the prevalent American religion.
Why talk about the structure of salvation? Isn't this a pretty theoretical and divisive topic?
I believe there is a God. And since there is a God, there is immense freedom and grace for me. Because I am not God.
A grace view of the world is possible. But what does it look like?
You may have been taught at a young age that salvation is by God's grace. I was raised from childhood that salvation is all about God's grace. But, and it's a big but, the whole religious system I was raised with only featured grace in that one specific spot.
In a world measured by human performance, grace doesn't make sense. One worse. Grace not only doesn't make sense, grace gets the hard cases and rejects. Grace is the condescending act the powerful bestow on the failures, or grace is the self-consolation of those who are broken and hurting.
We live in a world of human performance. Our success comes from our actions. All sorts of effort goes into determining how different actions could produce better results.