Difficult doctrine of the love of God
Yesterday afternoon I had a strange conversation with a lady outside our church. As I was leaving Adventure Club, there was this lady wrestling agressively with the rose bush that grows in the front garden of our church. As I watched, I realised she had no real issue with the bush - rather she was trying to get some long stemmed roses from our plant, but almost pulling it out of the ground in the process.
Sam: Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but would you mind leaving our rose bush alone? It makes it quite hard for us to keep our front garden looking nice if people take off with our flowers all the time...
Lady: (continuing to wrestle, but now with incredulous look on her face) "It's for an altar." (as if the word 'altar' somehow makes it ok...)
Sam: Ok, but you're still damaging our plant.
Lady:(now has almost broken an entire stalk off the plant) I don't think Jesus Christ would be upset at me taking these flowers. (Lady now thinks hard...) ... Jesus was all about tolerance and love.
Sam: (resisting the temptation to mention something about Jesus hating theft) Sure, but perhaps you could...
Lady: (cuts me off in mid sentence, now having achieved her goal and procured a number of free roses) Well the damage is done now, what can you do? Exit lady.
Aside from the hide of this woman to continue in her theft (despite being reproached on the spot!), this incident reminded me of the difficulty of preaching the love of God to our society. For someone to be caught blatantly stealing outside a church and then say 'Jesus is all about tolerance and love', shows just how far our society has moved from a biblical worldview of God and his character. Sure, this woman had heard of the love of God, but ideas of justice, or judgement, Lordship, even sin, would bring looks of incredulity and horror to this woman's face, and the faces of many in our society. If our society admits any God, it is a God who is a far cry from the God of the Bible. He is a God who has been purged of anything our culture finds uncomfortable. Carson writes in The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God:
"The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all, sentimentalized... in short, the most energetic cultural tide, postmodernism, powerfully reinforces the most sentimental, syncretistic, and pluralistic views of the love of God, with no other authority than the postmodern epistemology itself."
11 comments:
That's pretty sad isn't it :(
very sad really...
You should have introduced her to the doctrine of face-smashing...
(or not).
I would have mentioned the stealing thing.
What a mean lady :( But good on you Sam for being so polite and not yelling at her despite her rudeness.
-Soph
That is sad - what an interesting run-in!
I love don's quotes! He had a ripper in a sermon I listened to not long ago attacking a similar view of God.
"God is not some soporific grandfather who occasionally props open an eyelid to bestow some kind glance upon us"
It's not a real Don Carson qute unless you need to use a dictionary!
Sorry - i just love listening to Don's dulcet Canadian tones in my mind.
I think in hindsight I probably should have said something about stealing - I was just shocked I think.
well, as the good scriptures say, "if a woman taketh thy rose bush, giveth her some peat moss as well ..."
... or it something else? ...
How good a word is Soporific!
Soporific: adj - tending to induce drowsiness or sleep, tediously boring or monotonous.
Have you read difficult doctrine of the love of God Guthers?
Its been sitting on my coffee table for a while waiting to be read!
I'm just starting to re-read it, so if you want a reading partner...
sold.. lets do it
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