Oughtness
W oodrow Kroll coined a word which he used on Back to the Bible, oughtness . He used it in relationship to prayer, in that we ought to pray. He defined oughtness as "that inner sense of obligation to obedience that many Christians find annoying and therefore unheeded." In the context of prayer, we sometimes find it difficult to pray because we pray and it seems like nothing is happening or we feel like we don’t have time. But we ought to do it. One of the things that stood out from what Woodrow Kroll said is that he made a distinction between oughtness and legalism . It would be easy enough for us to make this into a legal requirement for religious practice. We might tell people, pray three times a day or God won’t bless you. But it isn’t a legal requirement. It is just something we ought to do. But oughtness applies to more than prayer. There are a number of things that I see church people doing or not doing that bother me. Some of it is things clearly defined in the ...