Book Review: Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God

Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, Brian Zahnd

“But it is visibly clear that God is under no obligation to keep such a person from eternal destruction, not even for one moment. It doesn’t matter how religious the man is or how many prayers he makes. Until he believes in Christ, God is not obligated in any way to protect him.” 

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

If you have found your way to The Holy Craft, you’ve probably gotten perturbed by the whole angry God idea. Jonathan Edwards was not the first to preach about an angry God, but will certainly not be the last, unfortunately. The angry God of Jonathan Edwards has used to manipulate people to repentance and is not an accurate picture of what so many progressive people believe about God. 

Brian Zahnd reveals his own journey from believing in the angry God of Jonathan Edwards who has no interest in protecting or loving humankind, to finding life and community with a God who knows no wrath. The go-to proof defenders of a wrathful, vengeful God use is from the Old Testament. Zahnd suggests that in the more violent passages of the Old Testament, perhaps the writers were projecting their own violence onto God. The problem was that humans were making God into their own image, then using that God to verify their horrible actions (slaughter, mass genocide, rape, etc). 

Throughout the book, Zahnd introduces the concept of a Jesus hermeneutic (pronounced her-men-oot-ic). Basically, he advocates to use Jesus’ life and ministry to interpret the Bible. He says, “Jesus shows us how to read the Bible and not be harmed by it.” (Zahnd, 57). 

How many of us needed that? Have you been harmed by the Bible? Have you ever had a verse from the Bible recited at you to rebuke your “sinful ways?” Have you had someone tell you, “Well that’s not what the Bible says” as they shake their heads with arrogance? This book clearly communicates that God is at least as nice as Jesus.Jesus reads the Bible (OT at the time) with grace and love and shows us how to also. He shows us how to not take one verse to beat people down with and shows us that “the Bible is not an end in itself.” (Zahnd, 65). 

In one of the most important moves, Zahnd uses several chapters to deconstruct the popular story of Jesus dying on the cross to satisfy the wrath of God. No one wants to worship a God who requires death to be nice to people. That is not a loving God. But, unfortunately that message has been preached over and over again. The God who needs death and blood to be satisfied is the God that most people believe in, which is why so many who are deconstructing feel so out of place.

The book then turns to deconstructing scary images of hell and reframing faith apart from the afterlife. Zahnd shows that preachers have been so quick to use hell as a scare tactic to make people faithful. But curiously, there was not an idea of hell in Jesus’ time. Hell is not some place people go if they don’t pray the right way. And our spiritual lives are not about preparing us for some future in a distant place of paradise or torture. Rather, the spiritual life is more about this life and how we love God and neighbor.

Hell has done more to hinder the work of Jesus and the good news of God than to help it. 

After spending several chapters explaining the real story for the Book of Revelation (hint: it’s not about the end of the world or the rapture), Zahnd closes out the book by reiterating the absolute centrality of love. He quotes Hans Urs von Balthasar who says, “Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed.” 

What would happen if our communities of faith and our spirituality were only focused on love? How would that change how we treated others? How would that change how we treat ourselves? 

This book is definitely one you want to pick up to start thinking about the implications of the angry God you’ve heard about and the good news of the God of love.