If I pronounce a death sentence on wicked people, and you don’t warn them to turn from their way, they will die in their guilt, but I will hold you responsible for their blood. (Ezekiel 33:8, CEB)
John Wesley alluded to this verse often. He felt the words were true and they were directed not just at Ezekiel, but at him. If he did not warn and rebuke those who were violating the law of God, John Wesley believed he would be held liable in the great judgement for the blood of those who went to eternity without his word in their ears.
Of all the ways we United Methodists in 2012 are different from Mr. Wesley, this strikes me as one of the greatest. As a church we simply do not share the beliefs that give this verse its bite. Many of us find the very notion of God’s eternal judgement old fashioned, rooted in a primitive worldview that is no longer persuasive in the 21st century. Even more spend as much time and energy as we can convincing non-Christians that we are not like “those” Christians who tell them God does not approve of hedonism.
But how is such a view safe, let alone scriptural?
In the old Methodist movement, John Wesley used to defend the work of Methodism by pointing to all the sinners who had been reformed. He took great pride, it seems to me when I read his journals, in taking note of village and towns where all manner of sin was embraced openly before the Methodists started preaching there. He always notes the change — and sometimes laments the failures — when Methodism took hold in such a place.
What do we point to in the UMC? Are there places where our presence rolls back evil? Does our witness anywhere warn the wicked, or is the blood of millions on our hands still?
I think one of the most pernicious things that has happened in our culture has been the way that love of God and love of neighbor have been divorced and pitted against each other. When “justice” is about what somebody else is doing to the poor whether it’s the government or the market or “the rich,” then there is no comprehension of the violence that I personally do to human community when I am a slave to greed, lust, sloth, and all the other sins. When “holiness” is reduced mostly to sexual propriety and bourgeois normalcy in general and is understood exclusively in terms of obedience to a set of rules which aren’t supposed to have anything to do with the vitality of our relationships with other people, then a moral therapeutic God can bulldoze holiness
The social gospel and the fundamentalist reaction of the last century are equally responsible for the decay that we see. I don’t think we need to have Wesley’s 18th century description of hell any more than we need to use the King James Version of the Bible. But we do need to operate under the conviction that unless people receive the freedom that God’s mercy provides through Jesus’ cross, they will spend eternity isolated from God and each other. Sin does way more damage than simply making God mad; it makes us “love darkness instead of light because our deeds are evil” (John 3:19). We choose isolation without atonement. This is why I think it’s important to affirm that God’s goal is communion (which is achieved through the holiness instilled by His grace) rather than correctness (understood as abstract conformity to a single “right” opinion or behavior): http://morganguyton.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/communion-or-correctness-the-underlying-question/
In other words, we don’t have to make out God to be a jerk in our explanation of the hell that we need to flee (some Christians have really enjoyed making God a jerk). Some people want God to be a jerk; others don’t. God isn’t a jerk; He wants to reconcile us to Him and each other and He provides the means for accomplishing this. If we don’t take Him up on His offer, then we will remain isolated from Him but not for lack of love on His part.
I think I know what you are saying, Morgan, but I don’t know any Christians who characterize what they are doing as “making God a jerk.” Doesn’t the golden rule apply to our conversations with and about each other?
Rhetorical questions like that are patronizing and dismissive. I’m not sure how else to convey the meaning that needed to be conveyed.
I think John was seeking clarity. Do you know Christian brothers and sisters who want to make God “a jerk?” I think that’s what he’s getting at.
The rhetorical question was unnecessary. I don’t think anyone wants God to be a jerk overtly, but many Christians do get currency out of believing “reluctantly” in a tough God (who’s tough on the people that they define themselves against). It’s a form of ideological works-righteousness and a tactic of self-justification. “Woe to you who travel land and sea to win a single convert and when he becomes one, you make him twice the child of hell that you are” (Matthew 23:15). I have met quite a few Matthew 23 Christians in my time. And I’ve certainly got my own way of being a Matthew 23 Christian myself.
John, Quoting the Old Testament today is usually rejected as not applying in any way shape or form to the Christian even thou all who study scripture (Old an New) know what is written in the O.T. is reiterated and quoted in the New. New and personal revelation has replaced old truths. After all, the bible is a living, breathing and changing instrument they say.
If you research what some in the UMC have participated in your questions are answered.
WOW (Witness Our Welcome) 2003 is a good example.
Tooley did a piece on it and the WOW website is online.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/973415/posts
IF you read the writings of Kolodnyn and Mollenkott along with their personal testimony it speaks for itself.
2 Peter 3:15-17
15 And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him— 16 speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.
God is never a jerk and teaching and quoting what Christ and the Apostles said is never the wrong way. When Jesus said, “preach the gospel” he was not instructing the Apostles to preach their own personal gospel but the gospel as written.
IMHO
It should give us pause. I find myself smiling or chuckling when folks in sin look to me for approval. In a way that’s letting folks just assume agreement. I can’t imagine God is happy with that. I pray that the Holy Spirit will show me how to speak His truth clearly and winsomely, but doing that means actually doing it.