Love, Sin, & Metaphors

Brian Zahnd is the founder and lead pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri -- a non-demoninational Christian congregation. He is also a passionate reader of theology and philosophy, an avid hiker and mountain climber, and authority on all things Bob Dylan.

He and his wife, Peri, have three adult sons and seven grandchildren. He is the author of several books, including Beauty Will Save the World, A Farewell To Mars, Water To Wine, Unconditional?, and Sinners In The Hands Of A Loving God.

To find out more or to follow his blog, visit: www.brianzahnd.com.

Scott, Marcy, and thaiv skype in Brian Zahnd. 

After a brief introduction, the crew highlights Brian Zahnd’s recent book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God. He also has a blog post discussing his viewpoints made in the book, that can be found on his blog site.

“We were all captivated, mesmerized, scared when we read it.” - Scott, regarding Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God.

They especially felt that way after reading a chapter that leaves you with quite the conundrum  -- what if God asked us to kill our kid? Brian says it’s a powerful thought experiment that has implications, and there’s no easy way out of it.

Brian starts off by telling us a little history of himself. When he was 16 years old, he had a dramatic encounter with Jesus. Overnight, he went from being the high school Led Zeppelin freak to the high school Jesus freak. It was shocking to everyone, himself included. Brian’s nickname was “Fry”, due to his temper. A few weeks after his encounter with Jesus, he’d changed so much that people kept saying things like “Fry I can’t believe what’s happened to you.”...and he couldn’t either! He was leading his friends to Jesus and then, at the age of 17, started leading a coffeehouse ministry that turned into their church when he was 22. For 7 years there were only about 100 people attending the church, and then it suddenly took off and got big fast. It became one of the Top 20 fastest growing churches in America. By the year 2000, he was definitely winning in the ministry world...everything appeared to be great. But he was feeling a little off...a bit “meh.” He quoted Bilbo Baggins to describe what he was going through. “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” There was nothing going wrong necessarily, but he felt like it should be better, more substantive, more rich.

He didn’t really know what to do with this, so he started reading a ton. He read all sorts of books from church fathers, philosophy, and a cannon of classic Western literature. Something began brewing within him. In 2004, he spent the first 22 days of that year in total prayer and fasting, as a desperate bid to God. He lost so much weight in that time, people were afraid he was dying. But through it all, he broke into another realm. He prayed that God would show him what to read. (Sidenote: He wasn’t reading any contemporary theology, because he didn’t know about it.) Five minutes later, his wife walked up to him, handed him a book and said “Here. I think you should read this.” He was stunned because she didn’t know what he had just prayed. Also, she’d never read that book. In fact, to this day, they don’t even know how the book got into their house. The book was Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy, a book about rediscovering our life in God in the here and now. It was life-changing and a gateway drug into reading more contemporary theological books, by authors such as NT Wright, Walter Brueggemann, Stanley Hauerwas, David Bentley Hart, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and more. He read himself into a new place and found what he had been looking for. He says he had never been so excited to be a Christian.

As he was reading, he was being transformed, and his preaching was changing as well. But not everyone was digging it. In 2004, he told his church that he was “packing his bag and moving on from the charismatic movement.” And 1,000 people left. There was a lot of pain and hurt involved, and they paid quite a price, but they absolutely love where their church is today. If you want to find out more about the church check out Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Then he started writing books on forgiveness, beauty, and peace, but received some pushback. So then he wrote a book in response to all of the questions and pushback he’d been receiving. He knew there had to be a way to work with the text and scriptures and move toward what we believe the Spirit is showing us that God is love. This is how Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God was born. The book has helped countless people and brought a lot of healing. Scott says it’s helped him a lot as well and the book put into words what he’d been feeling.

So what is the premise of Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God?

God is not angry, violent, and retributive. There is a way of reading the Bible that, if you wanted to proof text that God is in fact those things (angry, violent, retributive), you certainly can. But is it true? Is it actually compatible with the God revealed in Christ? If they’re not compatible, then what do we do? Well, there’s a way to faithfully work with the text and also come down on the side that God is perfectly revealed in Jesus. God is like Jesus, and God has ALWAYS been like Jesus.

The name for Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God came from a riff on Jonathan Edwards famous 1741 sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Edwards sermon was perhaps the most influential sermon in the history of America, and nothing has shaped the American religious imagination more. The sermon was an appeal to sinners to recognize that they will be judged by God and that this judgment will be more fearful and painful than they could ever comprehend. It was used to awaken people to the horrific reality that awaited them if they didn’t call on Christ to be saved. A lot of pastors were fascinated by this sermon and used it to evangelize. Brian was one of them that kept it in his preacher’s arsenal, and even had parts of it memorized so he could “engage in evangelism by terrorism.” He describes it as a good cop/bad cop type of thing. Basically, you preach an angry God but there’s a Jesus that will save you from his anger-issue dad.

Check out this passage, known as the Spider Passage, that is one of the most famous parts of Edwards’ sermon:

"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear you in his sight; you are ten thousand times as abominable in his eyes as the most hateful, venomous serpent is in ours."

–Jonathan Edwards, Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God

We were left with a vicious portrait of God after Edwards’ sermon. When it comes down to it, this portrait that is presented of the God that Jesus called Abba is just not true. God is not anger. God is love. Brian poses the question that are we actually inflicting a kind of PTSD upon the souls of people that responded to a gospel preached in the manner of Edwards’ sermon, that they end up struggling with for the rest of their lives? There are so many people out there that say things like “I love Jesus, but I’m not sure about his dad. I guess God loves me for Jesus’ sake. They had a quid pro quo, they worked it out.” People struggle with the idea that God actually truly loves them. We are preconditioned to some degree to believe in a god of almighty, merciless vengeance. But the truth is, God is perfectly revealed in His son, Jesus Christ, who does not act towards sin in a way that is angry, violent, or retributive.

Brian views the Bible as canonical text, God-inspired, and authoritative in that we must always engage in it in our conversation. There is, however, a distinction between the Bible and Christianity. He says one of the problems we have within Protestantism is the temptation to conflate Christianity and the Bible into a single entity. That is a mistake and it places a pressure on the Bible that the Bible just cannot bear. A further reading of this viewpoint can be found in Christian Smith’s book The Bible Made Impossible. In summary, the book argues that if evangelical biblicism worked as its proponents say it should, there wouldn’t be the vast variety of interpretive differences that biblicists reach when studying the Bible. To further explain his point, Brian uses the example of a massive tree that necessarily must be rooted in the ground. We can’t separate the tree and the ground, but the tree and the ground are not synonymous…they are not the same thing. They are inseparable, but not synonymous. In the same way, Christianity is rooted in the soil of Scripture...but Christianity is not the same as Scripture.

“Tell me what you want to believe...give me five minutes, and I’ll give you your list of verses to prove you’re right. That’s the Bible made impossible though.” - Brian

Brian says that, in the end, the Bible can’t be all that we’ve tried to make it be. “It can’t be this perfect edict of this repository of divine truth, that if we could only read it JUST RIGHT, then we’ll get it.” Rather, the Bible is captures in time of how Christians were talking about the God revealed in Christ, always pointing beyond itself though. The Bible is not an end in itself; it points to Jesus, who is the head of the church.

“The Bible does not stand above the story it tells, but is fully immersed in it. The Bible itself is on the quest to discover the true word of God.” - Brian

Brian also talks a little about metaphors within the Bible. He specifically points out the metaphorical language we often find in Psalms. He says metaphor is the only recourse we have, because we cannot speak of God without using metaphors. But if you push a metaphor too far, it always becomes untrue. Metaphors are always in danger of turning into idols if you focus too much on them. So in Scripture, oftentimes there will be a multitude of metaphors being used and then sometimes ones that are no longer helpful are retired.

Brian used Psalm 7 as a specific example of the psalmist working with metaphors. In this passage, it starts off acting in retributive judgment, where God is a righteous judge that sits in judgment everyday. But part way through the passage, it switches to consequential actions, not retributive. How does it switch to consequential suffering? He explains it this way: God is love seeking expression, and all of creation flows from this God of love, who out of his sheer gracious goodness, creates. This establishes a “grain” to the universe. So, if we run with love (for God and for man), over the course of a lifetime, it tends toward well-being, human flourishing, and a thriving of the soul. But if we run with selfishness and don’t go with this grain of love, we will suffer the shards of self-inflicted sorrow. This is what Psalm 7 speaks of. You can call it the “wrath of God” if you want...the Bible does, and it uses many metaphors to picture that “wrath”. But just know, it’s consequential, not retributive.

Brian encourages us to read the Bible as a creative, metaphorical, religious text, canonized and inspired, and that of which we must constantly stay in conversation with. Try not to obsess over literalizing metaphors. Doing so creates that phenomenon of modern fundamentalism, which does not have historical roots. He realizes this is difficult for some people to swallow, but…

“The Bible is not divine.” - Brian

"Divine" is a word we apply to deity. The Bible is not God. The Trinity is NOT “Father, Son, and Holy Bible.” It is “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The Bible is inspired by God. It points us to Jesus, who is divine and is the Word made flesh. Brian points out that God couldn’t say everything he had to say in the form of a book...so he said it in the form of a human life.

Brian says it’s important to identify trajectories in Scripture. Look for Jesus in the text. He says he privileges the Gospels, especially the words in red, for interpreting the rest of the text. He’s not afraid of the rest of the Bible, though. The God of the Old Testament is the same God that Jesus called Father in the New Testament. He explains how the Old Testament is the Hebrew/Jewish bible. So why was it appended as a giant prequel to the Christian canonical text? Because it contains the story of how we get to Jesus. He warns believers to never go into the Old Testament without Jesus as your guide and interpreter, because the worst thing you could do is run there and find old text that completely mutes what Jesus calls us to. When you’re reading, if there appears to be a moment of tension or contradiction between Jesus or Moses or Paul, (etc.), privilege Jesus. Privilege what you see Jesus saying and doing in the Gospels.

Changing gears a bit, we dive into the most popular chapter of Brian’s book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God…“The Hell Chapter”. This chapter deals with how we have a tendency to equate salvation with Heaven and Hell. However, the Bible essentially never does that. But we’ve been conditioned to think that way and approach it that way. He says that afterlife issues are at best tangential to the proclamation of the gospel in the New Testament.

“The Gospel was not about Heaven and Hell minimalism.” - Brian

It’s not about afterlife speculation or post-mortem issues. In fact, Brian suspects that if we were able to sit down circa AD 50 and interview Paul, John, and Peter and ask them what happens when people die, we’d probably get several different answers. That’s just not what was driving their thinking...what we call “salvation”. Salvation is a kind of belonging...a belonging to the body of the Messiah. And this inclusion in the body of Christ, is by faith in Christ alone. So salvation is based on faith of Jesus as the Messiah...that removes works. Judgment in the afterlife, however, does involve works. The Bible does talk about that.

All that are saved and to be saved, are saved by Christ. Brian says he is an incorrigible Christian in this one sense. “Who are you to tell me that Jesus can’t save that Muslim?” Who are you to say someone can’t be saved by Jesus? A really robust theological treatment of this subject comes from 20th century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, who wrote a book called Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved"?. Summed up: Yes, we dare hope, but we dare not say. Hans makes a point that the Catholic church does indeed say there is a Hell, but they don’t know if anyone is actually there.

Brian claims that while he is not a Universalist, he does not think that Christian Universalism is heresy. Christian Universalism is actually a minority position that’s always been held by some throughout church history, including the person who defined Christian orthodoxy!

“I’m not a Universalist...I’m a Universalist sympathizer…...In the end, if God in Christ can redeem all of creation, I’m down with that. I won’t be disappointed.” - Brian

What if it turns out that God is actually able to save all? How does that make you feel?

“If you find yourself angry that Hell might not be as populated as you had hoped, maybe you need to sit with Jesus with that for a while.” - Brian

Scott, Marcy, and thaiv debrief the podcast

They all agree that they appreciated Brian’s take on God and seeing the Father in a really great light. Brian presented an image of a Father that is so consumed with love, a Father who IS love, and who uses that love to break down all sorts of barriers and thoughts and preconceived notions that we’ve taken for granted or taken as truth. In Brian’s book, he sarcastically remarks “I hope that God is as good as me,” poking fun at how we picture God as someone who is worse than we are. How often do we have a better view of ourselves than we do of God? But that’s so inaccurate. In reality, we should be living lives of love that reflect an attitude of Christ.

Scott asks Thaiv and Marcy what they struggled with in the book or in the talk with Brian.

Thaiv likes the line in the book: “Is God not big enough to save whoever he chooses to save?” He knows God can do whatever he wants, but is still trying to wrap his mind around how that works and looks for someone who hasn’t actually called on the name of Christ, which is so much of what we’re taught. He goes on to say how it’s easy to get caught up in that stuff and spend a lot of time focusing on yesterday or tomorrow and not living today. So he’s trying to be less concerned about tomorrow and yesterday and more concerned about who he is in Christ today and trying to live that out.

What Marcy struggles with is that we’re left with only two options -- that either God is torturing everyone in Hell, or God loves everyone and everybody is in Heaven. But there’s a whole other spiritual being that wasn’t addressed. What role does Satan play? What does it mean to believe in Hell and torture, not by God, but by Satan? Satan is definitely talked about in Scripture, so what do we do with that?

We’re left with questions like what does a final judgment look like? Do we get only one chance or do we get another chance too? And it’s often preached to get saved NOW so you can get to Heaven. But Heaven is here NOW. God is redeeming this place now. So what does that look like exactly?

The crew agrees with Brian that we will probably be surprised by how many people are in Heaven.

Marcy brings up an idea that, while she doesn’t believe in the type of preaching found in Edwards’ sermon, who are we to say shame on you Edwards? Because people still got saved. Brian Zahnd says that you can’t justify a means to an end, but Marcy asks, isn’t the end important too? Does Edwards’ sermon still “get the job done”? (Cue Scott making fun of Marcy for doing air quotes on a podcast. Well done, Marcy, well done.)

Scott adds to that with an example of how you can tell your child something and they might think you’re being a jerk about it...but you’re not. You’re just trying to make them not do something bad or something that will hurt themselves. It’s our own rebelliousness that makes us think that way. That’s how God uses something like Edwards’ sermon. Jesus may have been like “I probably wouldn’t have said it that way, but I’m going to use it anyway because I love these people.”

Discipline in love is such a useful thing to protect and teach. But the way Edwards’ sermon reflects Jesus as someone who will be the one that will make everything okay with “Dad” [God], is inaccurate. Jesus is a reflection of God the Father. There is, however, such a thing as a healthy fear of who the Father is...and it’s a good thing. The Bible even says that there’s a certain fear you have for the Father that leads to holiness. And we can’t throw that away.

While there are certain things the crew doesn’t necessarily entirely agree with Brian Zahnd on, such as throwing out Jude or some things Paul said in Scripture, they are okay with his view. At the end of the day, it doesn’t change the beauty of Christ or his authority, divinity, or supreme being. It’s easy to tell that Brian absolutely loves Jesus, and it was a pleasure talking to him!

Be sure to check out his books and his blog!

This podcast was sponsored by Paradise Falls in Missoula, MT...aka the bar found in the Zootown Church parking lot. (Big shout-out to Tom McLaughlin!) Paradise Falls has the greatest happy hour, awesome appetizers, and life-changing pork sliders. Visit this place for delicious food and drinks any time of day! Happy Hours are Monday-Friday: 3-6pm and Sunday-Thursday: 9-11pm. For more info visit their website: http://paradisefallsmissoula.com/.