Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, by Brian Zahnd

Brian Zahnd, pastor of Word of Life church in St. Joseph, Missouri, challenged Christians to embrace Jesus as peacemaker in Farewell to Mars.  In Sinners in the Hands of Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News, he challenges Christians again.  Responding to perhaps the most famous sermon in American church history, Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Zahnd shifts the focus away from God's wrath to the love of Jesus.

Zahnd acknowledges that the Old Testament is overflowing with examples of a vengeful, violent God.  But the perfect revelation of God is Jesus himself, who embodies love and rejects violence.  God didn't change between the Old and New Testaments, but "the Old Testament is the inspired telling of the story of Israel coming to know their God. . . . God doesn't evolve, but Israel's understanding of God obviously does."  Based on the cultures that surrounded them, Israel made assumptions about their God that Jesus negated.

This explanation of Israel's changing view of God is the most satisfying justification for the vengeful, violent portrayals of the Old Testament I have heard or read.  Zahnd reminds us to read the Old Testament in light of Jesus and his character.  In fact, remember that "the Bible is the penultimate word of God that points us to the ultimate Word of God who is Jesus."  Zahnd says he doesn't hold a low view of scripture but a high view of Jesus.  I just wonder if he takes it too far: "Jesus saves the Bible from itself!  Jesus shows us how to read the Bible and not be harmed by it.  Jesus delivers the Bible from its addiction to violent retaliation."  This rings true in part, because Zahnd provides a filter through which to read those horribly uncomfortable Old Testament passages.  Yet it still sounds . . . wrong.  Sure, Jesus ranks higher than the text of the Bible, but the Bible is the record of what we know about Jesus.  It's great to say we default to Jesus, but that means turning to scripture to learn about Jesus.  We either get into a circular argument or else we create the Jesus of our personal experience and preferences.

From there, Zahnd takes a turn toward what might be interpreted as universalism.  He certainly raises questions about the way many evangelicals view salvation.

According to Jesus, the avoidance of afterlife condemnation is not based upon being able to give particular answers to abstract theological questions cribbed from John Calvin and labeled "faith" but on how one actually lives his or her life.  Jesus certainly did not lay the foundation for an afterlife theology that claims all non-Christians go to hell.  This has become a common way of thinking about heaven and hell--"Christians go to heaven; non-Christians go to hell"--but it is not based on anything Jesus ever said!

This is the kind of passage Zahnd likes to write, giving us a lot to think about but studiously avoiding developing a further argument.  Zahnd continues, "The gospel is not the appalling claim that billions of people are fated to unending agony by a capricious God!"  Well, sure if you put it like that. . . .  "Jesus can save whomever he wants."  True.  Of course.  But it seems to me that one message of the Bible is that not everyone will be saved.

The best that can be said about much of Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God is that he inspires me to pull out my Bible for some refreshers and reminders about the gospel.  I think Zahnd would affirm that as one of his missions as a teacher, preacher, and author.  He certainly discourages his readers from wholly embracing conventional theological wisdom.  And his over-arching point remains: Jesus is the revelation of God, and Jesus is all about love. 


Thanks to Blogging for Books and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!