Is God Wrathful by Nature?

Thanks to Billy at Classical Arminianism for a great post on why wrath cannot be considered an authentic attribute of God. Yet, one more reason to disagree with Wayne Grudem’s view of Christianity…

http://classicalarminianism.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-wrath-cannot-be-considered.html

God and Tornadoes

Excellent post by Jonathan that tackles the issue of God’s use of natural disaster in the Old Testament:

http://jonathangroover.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/old-testament-prophecy-and-tornadoes/

A Second Look at Biblical Wrath and Judgment, Part 2

So where did the idea of God as our judge come from? The NT is always “echoing” events and illustrations from the OT and ”spring boarding” forward to a more developed realization of God based on the work of Christ. If you don’t have the OT background, there’s really no way to properly define judgment in the NT.

Our modern understanding of judgment as a “legal” activity did not form in church history until around 1100 C.E. With the introduction of Roman law codes back into Western civilization, civil and religious thought began to merge. This is also what caused the witch “trials” – legal action governing religious preference. That’s never a good idea. Anyway, this legal view had, I believe, seriously negative impacts on the Christian understanding of God, judgment, and the cross. It birthed the “penal-substitution” model of atonement through writings of Anselm and John Calvin (for another post). But it also associated the biblical idea of judgment with the pronouncement of a guilty verdict and the following punishment by a court of law. And there’s the problem. What did people think the Bible meant when it talked about judgment before we let legal attitudes influence it?

The OT understanding of judgment is particularly found in the book of Judges. God reflected his understanding of judgment in the actions of the judges. So, what did the judges do? They didn’t destroy Israel - they were actually raised up to deliver God’s people from oppression. They fought for the people, delivered them from impending doom, and reinstated peace. This is about the time a little light ought to be coming on in your head. I know it did for me and it changed how I related to God permanently.

Now I say, “Thank God he is our judge.” God’s most poignant moment of judgment is found in his deliverance of humanity on the cross, not by crushing them in some end times scenario. His wrath at sin, based on his love for us, compelled him to find another way to reach us. His judgment, a result of his wrath, is found in the mission and compassion of Jesus. God raised up a new “judge” to deliver us from sin and death: Jesus. God’s wrath, a temporary measure against sin, is born out of his eternal nature – his unconquerable love. The NT writers didn’t see God as a law court judge the way we do – that idea didn’t appeal to them. What did exist were the images of the Exodus, Gideon, Debra, and Samson – judges fighting on behalf of the people. This is the way that God is our “judge.”

A Second Look at Biblical Wrath and Judgment, Part 1

One thing that has drastically changed for me in recent years is my understanding of judgment and the wrath of God. Now, if you grew up like I did, you were taught that you should love God but also fear him.  I always assumed that God liked being feared as much as being loved and that fear was the “healthy” realization that God could smite me from existence at any point. What I didn’t understand was where the biblical origins of God’s wrath came from. I believed they came from his disappointment with my behavior – kind of like a child who has disappointed a parent one too many times. Though this idea helped keep me in line, I have found it does not represent God’s anger. You can be angry for any number of reasons. The OT tells us specifically why God was angry.

Passages in the OT that describe the wrath of God usually come from the prophets. Here we have different prophets rehearsing the emotional hurt and betrayal that God feels. Descriptions of whoredom, idolatry, and rebellious behavior inform all these passages. What God is usually trying to say through them is “I am so hurt that I am angry.” In essence, God comes across as a spurned lover who by opening himself up to become vulnerable to humans has his hopes for fidelity and spiritual “monogamy” constantly trashed. This didn’t happen just once – God continued to give Israel chances to accept his kindness, but they always rejected him. Anyone who has felt that level of personal betrayal understands this wrath. It’s not meant to harm to individual, but it hurts so deeply that it expresses itself in a tirade of emotions. Outrageous love in turn produces emotional devastation. See Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 2:20, 25:3-7; read Hosea 6:4-6, 11:3-4, 8-9 together.

So, describing God’s anger is a way for the prophets to convey God’s his deep hurt when he is rejected by his creation. Other OT passages show him weeping and obsessing over whether the Israelites will respond to his romantic overtures, like a girl waiting for a phone call from a boy. Even Jesus wept over the people that refused to hear his message. In Matthew 11, he imitates the prophets by saying that he wished to tenderly gather his people to him like “a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” He also imitates the wrath of God’s rejection in Matthew 23 by shouting death threats at Tyre and Sidon. Essentially, Jesus blurts out the emotion of the Father, like a young man shaking his fists in the air shouting, “You’ll pay for this!” as his girlfriend rides off in a car with another guy. Both examples reflect the love of God that he desperately wants to show all people. Some people just can’t see God having so much emotion. My response is twofold: 1) read the passages above and 2) where do your emotional responses originate? How about from being made in the image of God? 

A Christian’s view of wrath also affects his or her view of judgment. When judgment is over-emphasized, people accept Jesus because they don’t want to go to hell, not because they want a relationship with him. Preachers hate that but they’re usually the ones that cause it by not preaching a full understanding of judgment. And since when is not going to hell the gospel? The problem with many approaches to judgment is their overly negative understanding of God’s end times scenario. I actually know a girl who accepted Jesus because she didn’t want to live through the great tribulation. Well I’ve got news for you, Christians in Sudan think they’re in the middle of the great tribulation right now…

Judgment merely means to “render a decision” – not a negative decision, just a decision. Judgments can also be positive. Modern judges “judge” people guilty and innocent. When we say someone is a good “judge” of character, we are saying they intuitively know when someone is not only bad, but also those that are good. Therefore the judgment of God also includes judging “good” the life of a believer. For example, God judged creation good in Genesis. People who always think judgment is bad assume that God will let you in to heaven but plans to make you feel really lousy in the process. Or they teach that God will let you in but the actions of your life dictate a secondary form of punishment for not living out his perfect will for your life. Bob only gets 2 crowns while Joe over there did so good that he has 19, 402 crowns. Sheila gets a mansion and Laura lives in heaven’s ghetto. Huh? There’s a lot of scripture to muddle through on all of this but my question becomes: where is the cross in such a scenario? Does the cross “grade on a curve” that we don’t know about until we get to heaven? I don’t believe so. But you sure can get people to do a lot for Jesus if they buy into that idea.

If God’s definitive characteristic is love, then wrath and judgment flow out of that love. That’s not to say that there aren’t consequences for actions on earth. But it does mean that love finds a way to meet people where they are and enable them to walk in relationship with God. Wrath and “negative” judgment don’t please God in the least – they break the heart of a spurned Lover.

The Theology of “The Shack”

I just finished The Shack by William Young. I laughed. I cried. I finished it in two days. What a beautiful, beautiful book. If you have not read it, please, for the love of all that is decent and holy, pick it up.

Though it’s fiction, Young deals with some amazingly complex theology in the book. And, though most reviews slam the book’s theological perspective, I would like to help set the record straight. Below I point you to some scholarly sources that confirm and elaborate on the ideas found in The Shack. I don’t agree with everything I read (though I certainly agree with a whole lot of it), but it’s important for you to know that Young isn’t expounding some “strange wind of doctrine” to whisk the Christian community into deception. He’s actually more theologically up-to-date than most of his detractors.

But how did I know I was really  going to like this book? In his acknowledgements, Young lists Malcolm Smith as an influence in writing the book. Malcolm is one of the most unrecognized yet most influential Bible teachers of the last 50 years. You want depth in your Christianity? Go to his site and buy every book and CD you can purchase.

I don’t have time to provide academic references for everything in The Shack, but a few should help you know that Young isn’t some crazy dude who’s making up stuff.

Concerned about Young’s use of metaphor and gender in describing God (chapter 5)? For metaphor, go read Sallie McFague’s Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language. For gender, see Elizabeth Johnson’s She Who Is, or Paul Smith’s Is It Okay to Call God Mother?: Considering the Feminine Face of God.

Concerned about Young’s equality among the Trinity (chapter 8)? Read Robert Jenson’s The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel, Karl Rahner’s The Trinity, or Catherine Lacugna’s God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life.

Don’t like the idea of God having the “scars” of Jesus on his hands (chapter 6)? Read Jurgen Moltmann’s The Crucified God or The Creative Suffering of God by Paul Fiddes.

Don’t like the idea that Jesus proved his humanity in healing others (pp. 99-100)? Read about “Spirit Christology” in James Sheldon’s Mighty in Word and Deed or Gerald Hawthorne’s The Presence and the Power.

Confused by Sarayu’s speech on God as a “verb” rather than a “noun”? Read Miroslav Volf’s Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work.

Confused about Jesus’s lecture on submission and equality between men and women (chapter 10)? Go read Paul Jewett’s Man as Male and Female: A Study in Sexual Relationships from a Theological Point of View.

Don’t like Sophia’s view of judgment (chapter 11)? Go read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall/Temptation.

Don’t like the idea of God being limited by his love for us? Read W.H. Vanstone’s The Risk of Love.

So, that should help. Young isn’t saying anything new – just things that have remained within academic circles until recently. Hopefully this encourages you to study out some of the ideas Young put forward in his book…oh, yeah, and go check out Malcolm Smith.

Thus Saith the Lord: “Hey Jerks, Leave Joel Osteen Alone!”

Now that I’ve got your attention,  I’ll address my choice of title towards the end of this post. I need to get this off my chest…

There are a lot of people giving Joel Osteen a bad time these days. Although Joel certainly doesn’t have everything figured out, from the comments I hear it seems that everyone that criticizes him thinks they do. So, I want to expose some practical problems with this type of Christian “watchdog” behavior and then address a much larger and dangerous theological problem reflected in the actions of Joel’s critics.

I’ll try to run through these quickly, numbering each one:

1) Joel’s success is partially due to his ability to preach an “Americanized” gospel that focuses on success in life. I find it funny that those same people who bash Joel will proclaim the virtues of other preachers (no names, please) who are just as “Americanized” in their doctrine as well. American Christians usually love capitalism, yet when it expresses itself in spiritual terms, critics start building the gallows. Why kill a messenger when we all enjoy the benefit of that same capitalist mentality in other ways. Slightly hypocritical don’t you think? You do live in America, don’t you? What did you expect?

2) Pragmatically speaking, Joel influences around 40,000 people at Lakewood and countless more through television and books. Critics, do you influence that many people? Could you do it better? If he’s not “worthy” of ministering to that many people, who do you suggest (no dead theologians, please)? How many people is appropriate for Joel’s ministry? Just a ballpark figure will do. Yet, somehow, 40,000 people give Joel their vote of confidence each week. Can you even begin to imagine the weight and responsibility associated with that? Sometimes, it helps to not only step in someone else’s shoes, but also imagine what it may be like to have their feet.

3) Lakewood’s website states their doctrinal beliefs. They are completely orthodox. Yet, most critics cite doctrinal reasons for their disapproval. So he’s a little heavy on the “just stay positive” side of things. Does he deny the resurrection or the virgin birth? Oh…he’s too inclusivist in his evangelical beliefs. Is that grounds for heresy? Hardly. Last time I checked, the Apostolic Fathers took three centuries to hash out the nature of Christ. And, above all, when is doctrinal clarity more important than sharing the basics of the gospel of another human being? And he reaches people that most of us will never touch. Honestly, unless you attend there, you have no idea what additional biblical training their members receive. That makes your criticism uninformed to say the least. Yet, you jabber on, assuming that the people who attend Lakewood are too stupid to determine what Christianity looks like. That makes you sound like an anthropologist from the 1800s observing the “uneducated and unenlightened” behaviors of primitive peoples.

4) Sadly, the church’s willingness to spend its time beating each other up confirms the suspicions of every non-believer on the planet. Yet, the same critics can turn on a dime and launch into a full exposition of the fruits of the Spirit. If even half of the sermons, devotionals, and face time that has been devoted to Lakewood’s criticism was directed at more suitable endeavors, the church might actually convince a few people that “hair-splitting” and “safeguarding” were not its specialties.

Finally, some theological musings. The Bible has plenty say about this – that’s why I titled this post “Thus saith the Lord.” He already has. We just aren’t paying attention. Obviously, Joel’s critics are knee-deep in judgment, the exact kind that Matthew 7 warns about (Jesus also said something about a plank in your eye). But more importantly, those who criticize and find blame prove the truth of the Genesis story everyday. There’s this little book writer – Dietrich Bonhoeffer (you’ve heard of him?) – that addressed the critic’s problem. In Creation and Fall/Temptation, Bonhoeffer makes the point that when we judge we seize the position of God. Only God can judge. But there’s are reason why he’s the only one. Humans don’t have the full omniscience with which to make a sound and reasonable judgment of anybody. We simply don’t have all the information. That’s why eating from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” was such a travesty. We were never made to exercise knowledge of good and evil over others. We are supposed to love and serve one another. When we judge others, we ignore our limits and act as God. Subsequently every judgment we make is based upon partial knowledge - a knowledge God never intended for us to exercise. And don’t “proof text” me about “testing the spirits.” Testing means observing its fruit, not bashing other people. Honestly, whether anyone likes it or not, Joel’s ministry seems to bear fruit.

Fortunately, the same God that judges also shows mercy. So, how about we let that be God’s call? I don’t agree with everything Joel says…and I’m sure he would disagree with things I say. But Christians criticizing other Christians is like biting the Hand that feeds you.  To the extent that we have received the benefit of the doubt with God, we should extend that same preference to our brothers and sisters in Christ…especially Joel Osteen.