089: Virtue in the Christian life with Chase Kuhn

Do you remember the ALS ice bucket challenge of 2014? To promote awareness and raise money for ALS (that is, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is also called Lou Gehrig’s disease), millions of people took to social media and posted videos of themselves getting buckets of ice water dumped on them. Celebrities, politicians and athletes took part. People made more and more elaborate videos documenting the challenge—many of which went viral. And the whole thing raised over $220 million for ALS research. Here’s the thing, though: even though many, many people took part in the ice bucket challenge, only a fraction actually donated to the cause. It seems that the majority were more interested in being _seen_ to be doing good, and thus being thought of as a good person, than actually doing good. We call this kind of behaviour “virtue signalling”, a way of demonstrating to others that you have good character without actually needing to change yourself. As Christians, we want to be people of virtue who walk the walk as much as we talk the talk. But what _is_ virtue? What are _Christian_ virtues, as opposed to virtues that aren’t that Christian? Why is cultivating virtue important—important enough that the Centre for Christian Living has devoted an entire year to examining the subject? These are the sorts of things Karen Beilharz and Chase Kuhn discuss in this episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast. For an edited transcript and show notes, visit https://ccl.moore.edu.au/resources/podcast-episode-089/