Has God’s mercy widened? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
This book was made required reading for my first PhD seminar which starts next Monday. I suppose they want us to read something controversial we can respond to. Normally, I don’t try to use class books for my blog, but this was one that was so bad that I just had to say something on it.
Richard Hays wrote this with his son Christopher, hence I will at times be using first names in this blog to make it clear who I am speaking about. In it, they say they have changed their mind on what God has to say about same-sex romantic relationships. I thought for a bit on how to phrase that because I couldn’t say that they changed their mind on what Scripture says. As we go through the book, it will become clear what Scripture says doesn’t really matter much. Christopher takes the Old Testament and Richard the New Testament.
That being said, the first chapter is not really that disagreeable. You are going through and you really don’t see much. That makes sense as this is an introductory chapter. It is mainly introducing us to the character of God in the book and the role of man.
Christopher does talk about Calvinism some, but I’m quite sure not a single Calvinist will like this book. I’ll go further and say that not a single person who holds to classical theism at all will like this book. When writers talk about the nature of God, they should try to tun their ideas by some philosophical friends and ask “Do you think I’m opening myself up to any potential land mines by saying this?”
Unfortunately, this was not done.
Still, I will give credit that the first chapter was not entirely wrong. If anything, we could say this part was a more pleasant read than most. Christopher speaks about that it is because of the love of God that we even exist at all. I have no beef with that statement. He does treat Edwards as a negative in church history with the Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God sermon. From it, one would think that God utterly despised humanity and wanted to finish them off. If that is all you know about Jonathan Edwards that would be a shame, much like how I said in a post recently that if all you know about Pascal is his wager, you are misinformed.
He also does remind us in the end that people remember when they feel accepted and loved at a church. They also remember when they do not. While we do not need to go light on sin at all, we need to remember that those people who need healing from sin need to know that the church is a place that they can go to to get what they need. The church should be a hospital for the wounded and not a place where we shoot our wounded.
So everything sounds good. Right?
Just wait….
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)