Theological Journal – August 17 The God with a Scowl
"At the heart of our vocation is the passion to say, ‘No! God is not like that! God is like this!’ – as we point to the crucifix." (Chris Green)
In this post I try to say “No!” a
common and soul-destroying view of God in our culture.
“God with a Scowl”
And all of us are “believers.” There’s something or someone
that’s the bottom line for us and helps us make sense of our world and respond
to the issues we face in life. Doesn’t have to be “religious.” I am only
concerned here with the Christian deity, though. That that “God” has a major PR
problem at present is no secret to anyone.
Part of this PR problem comes from the miserable track
record of his people representing in the world, including
-the Crusades (11th – 15th centuries),
-the Inquisition (began in 12th century),
-John Calvin’s role in burning the heretic Servetus at the
stake in the 16th century,
-the church’s support of slavery and oppression of women for
centuries in North America,
among others.
Another part is God’s connection with violence and
war, particularly the so-called Holy War, in the Old Testament. A
recent critic, Richard Dawkins, describes the God he finds in the Old Testament
this way (in over-heated and one-sided rhetoric to be sure):
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant
character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving
control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic,
homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential,
megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” (The God
Delusion)
Can this be the God and Father of Jesus Christ? From Marcion
in the 2nd century to the so-called New Atheists in our time, some have
answered “No!” and rejected the Old Testament God in favor of the Father of
Jesus, or rejected the deities of both testaments altogether.
In our time, a variant has arisen under the influence of
feminist thought. God is thought to be a divine “child abuser” for requiring
the death of his son Jesus to atone for the sin of his people. God the Father
is ill-disposed to us because of our sin, is eager to punish us. Jesus,
however, loves us and suffers the mortal wrath of the Father against sin for
us. His wrath spent on Jesus, the Father can now love us. This way of thinking
pits God the Father against the Son, working at cross purposes (pun intended)
with one another.
All of this has factored in to a negative portrait of God in
the minds of many people. And in their hearts. This God is not a lovable deity!
If his hair-trigger temper brought judgments of all kinds on his people Israel
for their missteps, what assurance do we have that God will not also break out
in anger against the church or the individual Christian for ours? Must we
grovel and desperately attempt to placate this God to keep on his good side?
Again, many seem to think so. This “God with a Scowl” is far, far too often the
deity presented as the one found in the Christian faith. And it cuts the heart
out of that faith!
God as Triune, Love, and Jesus
Space forbids responding to these charges in any detail.
Only the last one will claim our attention here. The Bible claims that God is
love (1 Jn.4:16). Not just that he loves but that love is what God is. All God
intends and does comes out of love. Christian faith contends that God is
triune, that is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all at the same time.
Mind-boggling, I know. We can’t figure ought how God could be like this. And
because we can’t God has told us in the Bible. The Father, the Son, and the
Spirit, three-in-one, one-in-three, is an eternal community giving, receiving,
and returning love one to another. United in love, they work in concert and
never at cross purposes with each other. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit,
in love, determined to save us wayward creatures from the many hells we have
fallen into. The Father’s love planned our salvation, the Son carried that love
out in history, and the Spirit draws us into that love.
The triune God, then, this eternal fellowship of love,
assures us that God is not, will not be, and never has been against us. Hurt?
Disappointed? Grieved? Moved to discipline his wayward children? Even to
exercise “tough love”? Yes. But that’s just the nature of love isn’t it? God’s
aim in discipline, and even in “tough love,” is ultimately restorative. But is
God angry, vengeful, vindictive, eager to dispense retributive punishment? Is
he against us needing to be placated or convinced to be well-disposed to us?
No! He is not now and never has been the “God with a Scowl.”
Finally, and most importantly, the most distinctive claim
Christianity makes about God is that he is just like Jesus! This Jesus-likeness
of God means that we do not have to guess or speculate what God thinks about us
or has done for us – we have only to look at Jesus to know. If we harbor
un-Jesus-like thoughts or ideas about God, we can let them go. There is nothing
in God that is other than what we see in Jesus of Nazareth. It finally is all
about Jesus. And that means God is all about love!
God’s nature as triune, as love, and as one of us in Jesus
of Nazareth give the lie to the claim that God is angry at and ill-disposed
toward us. From all eternity God has been passionately in love with us (see
Ephesians 1 if you have any doubt). And for all eternity he will be in love
with us (see Ephesians 2:7 on this).
The great
theologian T. F. Torrance (1913-2007), as a chaplain in the military in World
War I, came across a 20-year-old soldier, dying after a battle. Torrance knelt
over him and the soldier said, “Padre, is God really like Jesus?” Torrance
assured him, “Yes. Yes, he is.” And then the soldier died.
Torrance was right! There is no “God with a Scowl.” If you
think so, if you think or feel that God is angry at you, you need to look more
closely at Jesus and read your Bible more carefully!
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