To Get Where You Want Sometimes You Need to Stay Put: Acedia and the Christian Life

A lecture given at L’Abri Fellowship in Southborough,
Massachusetts. For more information,
visit https://southboroughlabri.org/


by Joshua Chestnut


While we may intuitively think of a life of lazy resignation as
being diametrically opposed to a life of hyperactive busyness,
our ancestors in the faith may have seen things differently and
understood these two common ways of life as being symptomatic of
some deeper, spiritual problem, i.e. acedia. Sometimes translated
as "sloth," acedia originally identified an internal habit of
resistance (or laziness) to the Christian calling of loving God
and our neighbor. This lecture will consider acedia in its
historical context as well as its contemporary instances while
considering what might be its remedy.


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Southborough L'Abri 2024