Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” set a very poor direction for much of Christianity in the Colonies. His Puritan tradition presented God as an essentially angry deity whose desire was to condemn and torture. Grace or mercy existed simply in regard to how long God waited until calling down judgment upon sinners. That is not good news. It never was. Such is not the message of Jesus whom the gospel writers claim as good news. They echo the words of the celestial messengers declaring Jesus’ birth as good news of great joy to all peoples. Rather than look to Jesus as the clearest example of God’s identity, character, and will, that tradition surrounding Edwards began with an altogether different understanding that could not account for what Jesus actually taught. The Puritan perspective began with angry sinners and projected that upon God. Anger begins with fear, uncertainty, discomfort, and the inability to control one’s environment, ot...

My parents were SBC missionaries. They took me to Brazil, where I grew up under a military dictatorship. The military wanted to be the morality police. They imposed all sorts of laws to that end, but it did not effect any real change. Thousands of people were “disappeared,” silenced, exiled, left the country, or used coded speech to get around censorship laws. With the fall of the dictatorship, what had been repressed exploded from the shadows. Censorship does not change minds. Censorship does not address who people are. Censorship is not the way of Jesus. Jesus did not deal with coercion. He allowed people to walk away. When we resort to coercion, we are giving up on Jesus. It is our stating the way of Jesus is not enough. It says we don't trust him. It is like Peter pulling out a sword only to have Jesus call him down, telling him to put it away. The way of Jesus is love. It is setting an example. It is demonstrating a better wa...

Fundamentalism and conservativism are intrinsically averse to change. They are tied with conserving a status quo or moving back to a former era. They seek a safe place, a respite from change and transformation in the world around them. They are threatened by new ideas. They fear that the foundations on which they base their lives will be uprooted, causing their view of reality to fall apart. Growth depends on change. Life requires change. Survival depends on responding to changes in our environment. It requires new ideas. It requires new answers to old questions, as well as new questions with even newer answers. Jesus was by no means conservative. Jesus challenged the status quo. He fought against the groundwork of much of the religious thought around him, as well as the structures erected to empower its values. He called out those who benefited from social, religious, and political power. He demonstrated God's love, forgiveness and grace to those deemed una...