In a culture such as ours, Christianity is no longer a prevalent cultural force. Up until recent decades, the facts of the gospel were adequately (if superficially) grasped by most people, even if there was no personal commitment to them.
But this is no longer the case. Many New Zealanders hail from non-western cultures with no Christian heritage. Less and less Kiwis of Māori or British decent experienced Christianity in their own upbringing. Because of this, it is not unusual today for people to find biblical concepts strange, alarming, or outright offensive.
This highlights how important it is for Christian beliefs and practices to be clarified and explained. People might still decide it is not for them, but at least they will have a more accurate idea of what it is they have declined.
One recent rebuttal of Christian faith came in the form of a mock dialogue between God and humanity. It was a response to a post about Easter that I shared on a series of Facebook community pages around Henderson where my church is located (you can read that post HERE).
My response was to retort that the dialogue was a caricature of the Easter message—a crude depiction in which certain features are exaggerated while others are omitted, leaving an unfairly negative portrayal that no actual adherent would own. The author rejected the charge that it was a caricature and demanded to know how it was inaccurate.
Initially I declined, feeling that putting together a thoughtful response was not a worthwhile investment of my time. But evidently, I have changed my mind. It might be useful to someone.
Below you can see a screenshot of the dialogue, together with colour coded numbers that correspond to my responses further below.
1. First, the whole dialogue is theologically Contextless
There is zero background to who the character “God” is, or what humanity is, or why or what of they might be forgiven of. Only the cultural baggage of Christianity in the collective memory of the western mind. God enters the stage as a stranger—perhaps heard of, but not really known, and certainly not welcome if he corrects us or interrupts our plans. In much of western culture, such a view of God is widespread.
Western people are focused on what is material, and the pervasiveness of man-made environments insulates us from what might otherwise remind us of the presence of God. This is what Joseph Minich argues in his 2023 Bulwarks of Unbelief: Atheism and Divine Absence in a Secular Age (you can read a review of the book HERE).
In western cultures God is regularly regarded as an intrusion; an impolite and overbearing stranger. Given our largely non-religious culture, this is not surprising. It should remind us of the call that Christians should engage with western culture in the same way that a missionary might engage a foreign culture in their work. We should not expect to hold common assumptions with non-believers, and must work hard to help listeners make sense of the stark differences that exist between biblical and other worldviews.
For secular societies, God himself is the unusual point of difference. A Christian presentation of Jesus requires the foundation that God is the Creator of the world and of humanity. It also holds that humanity is expected to honour God by their words and actions, and are held accountable to God for that. Even without knowledge of God’s acts and promises, humanity is expected to recognise the Creator beyond the creation, and honour him as such and give thanks to him (Romans 1:20–21).
Without these fundamental facts, of course the message of the Gospel will be nonsensical.
God is not alien: this world belongs to him.
Starting the above dialogue with no acknowledgement of this background strips the Easter message of the context that allows it to make sense. Now, a critic could just as easily dispute the existence of God as Creator, but depicting the message of Easter without that background does not give a right presentation. This depiction is akin to a police officer making an arrest without a state and its laws: it makes no sense, and such a police officer is really little more than a kidnapper wearing a uniform.
God is thus not presented as God.
2. Second, the allegation of “torture and murder” omits the agency of Jesus in his death, as well as the roles of Judas, the Jewish leadership, and the Romans.
The bare statement given in the above dialogue strips down the biblical presentation of Jesus’ death to the degree that it looks positively and blithely abusive. The rationale behind such an act, even as it is presented, is also not mentioned and this will be raised in the next section below.
There have been serious writers who have suggested that the death of Jesus can be described as a form of “cosmic child abuse”.
In light of the biblical information, this is baseless. The Gospels present Jesus as one who was determined to go the way of the cross, even though it was a very troubling prospect. Jesus rebuked his disciple Peter for suggesting he should not suffer and die (Mark 8:31–33) and elsewhere stated that he would lay down his life of his own accord (John 10:17–18). To be sure, it was God the Father’s purpose for this to happen, but it was a purpose that Jesus willingly gave himself for (Mark 14:32–36; John 12:27; Galatians 1:4). What’s more, the purpose of Jesus’ suffering was not for God’s gratification, but to bring glory to himself and to save his people (Mark 10:45; John 10:10–11; 17:1; Philippians 2:8–9; Revelation 5:12; 1 Timothy 2:6; 1 Peter 3:18).
“Torture and murder” is an allegation that doesn’t really fit the facts.
[Those wanting to read more on the relationship of God the Father and God the Son within the subject on the cross and the atonement would do well reading Keith Johnson’s 2015 article “Penal Substitution as an Undivided work of the Triune God”, online HERE]
The other omission is that of the role of human actors: Jesus’ friend Judas who betrayed him, the religious leaders of the Jews who hated him, and the Roman government which apathetically handed him the death sentence to keep the peace. It is certain that the events of Jesus’ betrayal and death were well within the purposes of God, but these purposes took place within the realm of human agency and action—a fact understood by the early Christians, albeit not until after the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 2:23; 3:18; 4:27–28). Philosophically minded theologians sometimes call this “compatibilism”—the idea that human choices and divine will can be at work at the same time (cf. Joseph’s words about his experiences in Genesis 50:20). The role of humans in the death of Jesus is important. It reveals the sinfulness of humanity even in the presence of divinity drawn near, expressed in jealousy and betrayal and cowardice and apathy and callousness. The highest form of religion and the mightiest political power yet known to the world encountered God in the person of Jesus, and rejected him.
Jesus was not “tortured and murdered” by God. He willingly gave himself to God the Father’s purposes, which saw him tortured and murdered by evil men, so that he could rescue his people and bring glory to himself. Jesus was no unwilling victim, but a resolute victor.
3. Third, the dialogue Overlooks the Seriousness of Sin in Biblical Thought
This critique repeats the theme of omission raised above: a presentation of a position that ignores important details is not an accurate one, and risks being a distortion or straw-man.
If the fact of atonement via the physical sufferings of Christ on the cross is thought to be appalling (and the physical sufferings were not the half of it), the appalling and offensive nature of sin should be considered. In light of the seriousness of sin, that Jesus should be publicly condemned and executed in place of his people should not seem so unreasonable.[1]
Interested readers can explore well developed and comprehensive accounts of the doctrine of sin in the many quality introductions to Christian theology that are available in print. But one especially helpful description can be found in John Stott’s modern classic The Cross of Christ. In his chapter “The problem of forgiveness” (pages 106–109), he highlights several “vivid” metaphors the Bible uses to describe the offense of sin against God.
Stott points out that God in his holiness is high above us, and kept distant from us—inaccessible by sinful people (e.g. Isa 6:1; 57:15; Jos 3:4). God is also light that cannot be approached and fire that consumes—he is dangerously holy (e.g. 1 Tim 6:16; Heb 12:29). “Most dramatic of all” is the metaphor of vomiting, “probably the body’s most violent of all reactions.” God finds sin so disgusting that vomiting is deemed a fit metaphor for how he would treat it (e.g. Lev 20:22–23; Rev 3:16).
As Stott sums up,
“All five metaphors illustrate the utter incompatibility of divine holiness and human sin. Height and distance, light, fire and vomiting all say that God cannot be in the presence of sin, and that if it approaches him too closely it is repudiated or consumed. Yet these notions are foreign to modern man. The kind of God who appeals to most people today would be easygoing in his tolerance of our offences. He would be gentle, kind, accommodating, and would have no violent reactions. Unhappily, even in the church we seem to have lost the vision of the majesty of God. There is much shallowness and levity among us. The prophets and psalmists would probably say of us that ‘there is no fear of God before their eyes’.”
It is the seriousness of sin that warrants the seriousness of the requirements of redemption. If the concept of hell—however it is conceived—are thought to be unreasonable, it is likely that the unreasonableness of sin has not been fully grasped. Sin is worse than we perceive, and against a God purer than we comprehend.[2]
4. Fourth, there is the charge that the resurrection undermines the consequence of Jesus’ death.
This is itself an interesting point. If Jesus got his life back, as he expected he would, how is it a real sacrifice? While it is not man but God who is the arbiter of what is a real sacrifice, there are a few points that can be raised.
- Jesus’ sacrifice was more than the cessation of a life. Greater than that was his condemnation as a guilty man and his suffering the spiritual torments of being under God’s curse. Those factors are significant for understanding the significance of Jesus’ death.
- Jesus’ death was nonetheless an actual death. If we allow God to be the arbiter of the acceptability of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice, we can see that it was indeed acceptable when the Holy Spirit was given to people on the basis of their faith in him in Acts 15:8–9.
- Jesus’ resurrection was not a mere resuscitation in the sense of a rewinding of the experience of death. The resurrected Jesus retained the marks of crucifixion on his body (John 20:25–29). Resurrection is life post-death by the power of God into a new kind of existence. It is not a return to life as we know it with aging and disease and decline, but a moving forward into a form of living characterised by eternal life.
- Jesus’ resurrection was a vindication of him and his claims to be the Christ. Rather than being a guilty man justly condemned for blasphemy, sedition, and messianic pretence, the resurrection is God’s declaration that not only was he undeserving of death, but that he is the Lord of all (Acts 2:24–27).
5. The Snide Sign-off: the problem of Ridicule in Polemics
In case you thought this was a serious critique. The biggest challenge for this dialogue is that it doesn’t engage with a fair depiction of what it rebukes. I suspect there is no desire to do so.
This dialogue has given a theologically contextless presentation of the meaning of Easter, and omitted key doctrines that show how it makes sense within its own worldview. If the critique is intended to come from outside a Christian worldview, that is another kind of criticism.
But this instead lays a charge of internal incoherence, without giving the fuller picture. Between the cavalier replies from “God” and the absence of explanation or rationale, this “God” is a puppet character serving the dialogue-writer’s own narrative. It is not in any worthwhile sense representing God in any biblically or theologically reasonable way.
Critiquing parts of a system without taking account of the larger system of thought that it is part of is really a form of rhetorical cheating.
It is analogous to the claim that “tax is theft”. What the phrase “tax is theft” omits to acknowledge is that our taxes pay for things. Now we may dispute what things are funded with our taxes or how tax is raised or protest that tax is compulsory, but “tax is theft” is not honest.
Ridiculing a caricature might endear other cynics or intimidate the uncertain, but good polemics should aim to do better than this. Understanding a position on its own terms should precede critique, and critique should be made against a “best version” of the position.
I speculate that the dialogue writer’s presentation is based at least in part on an overly-simplistic understanding of the death of Jesus. This highlights the need for evangelical Christians (as well as other popular forms of Christianity) to provide more robust intellectual foundations in their spiritual formation efforts. The “simple gospel message” that was so popular and effective in the decades past also has serious shortcomings. What it gained in widespread appeal it sacrificed in lack of depth. Church leaders today would do well to address this in their ministries.
Further reading on the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross:
- John Stott, The Cross of Christ. (Read my summary of this book HERE. This book is also available in the Auckland libraries network, or can be read online for free with a simple login HERE)
- Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions.
- Jeremy Treat, The Atonement.
[1] This and the following two paragraphs have been lifted from an essay I wrote titled “Progressive vs Orthodox Christian Conceptions of Sin: A Brief Comparison”, available HERE.
[2] And if the reactions to God’s just judgements in Revelation 16:8–9, 10–11, 21 reflect human nature, sinning will continue in hell too. There will be no repentance after judgement day: if people already hate God, judgement isn’t going to make them like him. In full view of the light of deity, sin is utter insanity.
“Take Another Look” is a West Auckland-based ministry that aims to commend Jesus to people’s hearts and minds, and promote the way of life that the good news of Jesus invites us into. If you would like to discover the widely-held beliefs and practices and aspirations for good-character among Christians, please visit and explore www.TakeAnotherLook.nz. Or, if you have questions you would like discussed, please get in touch through the contact page.
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