138. Closing the Sanctification Gap

People--including practicing Christians--are neither as morally good as they should be nor as morally bad as they could be. This is the sanctification gap, the distance between who we are and who we should be. In this episode of the Influence Podcast, executive editor George P. Wood talks to Christian Miller about how to close that gap. Miller is A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University and director of the Character Projected, funded by the John Templeton Foundation and Templeton World Charity. He is also author of The Character Gap: How Good Are We? (Oxford University Press). Episode 137 Notes 00:00 Introduction of podcast topic 00:52 Senior Adult Ministries Conference sponsor ad 01:32 Introduction to Christian Miller 02:07 What is character? Why is it so important for sanctification? 05:45 Three ways of doing ethics, and why character is essential 11:31 Humanity as a moral middle: neither as good as we should be nor as bad as we could be 16:05 How biblical teaching and psychological studies align 19:24 Psychological insights into why we do (or don’t do) what we should do 25:15 Psychologically based, or common-sense strategies for improving character 30:26 Specifically Christian strategies for improving character 37:55 How as a Christian philosopher at a secular university, how do you stay faithful to Jesus but open to new academic insights? 43:37 Conclusion