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latviadugan 's review for:
A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel
by Bradley Jersak
If we worshipped a more Christlike God, perhaps we would become a more Christlike people. That's a key take away for me from "A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel." Bradley Jersak is a theologian who has migrated from conservative evangelical to Anabaptist to Eastern Orthodox, and all three streams are evident in this book.
The book asks the question, “What is God like and how is he present in the world?” The answer is simple: God is Christlike. “Jesus is not just a filter through which God is seen – Jesus is God. God is, was, and always will be exactly like Jesus.” (81) And through Jesus we understand that God doesn’t accomplish his purposes in the world through coercion or force, but through a cross. The cross is the most accurate portrayal of God’s being. (92) Additionally, “The cross reveals God’s person (who he is), but also his kingdom (how he reigns).” (121)
Specifically, Jersak addresses how a Christlike God shapes our understanding of:
• The wrath of God
• The presence of evil in the world
• The atonement
• Christian discipleship
Jersak is on to something in his discussion of God's wrath, but he never quite "got there," and he didn't support his conclusions well. He needed a better editor. Though on occasion he quoted church fathers, his points would have been much stronger and perhaps clearer if he had grounded the book more deeply in their writings. I struggled to decide whether or not to give the book 3 or 4 stars.
In spite of some big name endorsements (Eugene Peterson, Richard Rohr, and the forward written by Brian Zahnd), there were no Orthodox endorsements. He did dedicate the book to his Orthodox Spiritual Father. I'm not sure if he had fully converted at the time he wrote it.
What was brilliant was the idea that God is Christlike. He compares the Christlike God to un-Christlike images of God that permeate the Church today: the doting grandfather God, the deadbeat dad God, the punitive judge God, and the Santa Claus God. But if God is Christlike, then why all the commands to slaughter people in the Old Testament? Why the prophecies of bloody judgment? And what does the cross reveal about God? With more attention given to the Church Fathers, he could have done a better job answering these questions. In many places the book came across as a good rough draft.
Part 2 describes a God who reigns through love rather than control, a “Cruciform God.” Cruciformity takes the form of divine consent – God’s relinquishing control to natural law and human autonomy, Jesus’ submission to his Father’s will, and his consent to suffer the hostility of humans, all of which shape Jersak’s understanding of the atonement. “Rather than control and coerce, God-in-Christ cares and consents to suffer with us and for us.” (133) It’s laying down of divine privilege and emptying himself of divine power that reveals the nature of God and his method of ruling. God participates in our world by becoming human and suffering all our hostility. Needless to say, this is not penal substitionary atonement.
Jersak's understanding of atonement shapes his response to the problem of evil and suffering. God is not the author of evil, but he has consented himself to it – like Aslan does to the White Witch in Narnia. God is all-powerful, but “his power is not akin to control.” (171) So how is God’s power manifest? He is all-powerful as the Creator who establishes and sets the limits of the universe. He is all-powerful as the one whose love and grace know no limits. He is all-powerful in that there is nothing in the universe that can separate us from his love. The cross doesn’t solve our understanding of evil and why it exists, but it reveals and responds to it.
Part 3 is an explanation of what he means by “unwrathing God.” Jersak suggests that the phrase “the wrath of God” is a metaphor for what Greg Boyd calls “organic” or “intrinsic” judgment. The wrath of God is built into the fabric of reality in that sin carries its own penalty (Rom. 6:23), but God doesn’t actively punish. Living in sin is its own punishment, which is why Paul describes God’s wrath as giving people over to their sinful desires (Rom. 1:24, 26, and 28). Jersak provides us with much material to think about in this section, though it raised many unanswered questions in my mind. First, it doesn’t appear that all biblical examples of God’s wrath can be attributed to natural law and human freedom, as he tries to do. Stories like the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Egyptian plagues, Jesus' clearing of the Temple, and the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira don’t seem attributable to natural law or human evil. Second, there are too many scriptures that refer to the wrath of God to assume that this is just a metaphor for something less obvious. That doesn't mean that God's wrath is like ours, but Jersak seems to claim that wrath is not something that can be attributed to God at all.
In his own words, “This, then, is what I mean by the ‘unwrathing of atonement.’ Yes, every being on the planet is destined for wrath (Eph 2:3). Wrath, not as the vengeance of an angry God, but as the process of perishing under the curse and decay of sin. And what did God do? He unwrathed us! He freed us from sin’s slavery and unwrapped us from death. How? By wrathing Jesus in our place? No! By becoming one of us and, as Jesus, overcoming death by his great mercy!” (262-263)
In Chapter 14 Jersak argues that the gospel isn’t that when we turn our backs on God, God turns his back on us until he sends Jesus to suffer his wrath in our place. Rather, when we turn our backs on God, the wrath we experience is life without God or life lived as objects of a divine love we don’t want. He explains this using a simple illustration of “The Gospel in Two Chairs.” Rather than seeking to punish us, the Good News is that God is pursuing us. He went with Adam and Eve out of the Garden. He protected Cain after he murdered Abel. He maintained relationships with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in spite of their faithless disobedience. He sits with the Samaritan woman, parties in the home of a tax collector, and eats pork with the Gentiles. He justifies the ungodly and while we were yet sinners, he dies for us. We can read the Bible as stories of God punishing or pursuing those who forsake him.
Which paradigm will we choose?
Which God will we become like?
The book asks the question, “What is God like and how is he present in the world?” The answer is simple: God is Christlike. “Jesus is not just a filter through which God is seen – Jesus is God. God is, was, and always will be exactly like Jesus.” (81) And through Jesus we understand that God doesn’t accomplish his purposes in the world through coercion or force, but through a cross. The cross is the most accurate portrayal of God’s being. (92) Additionally, “The cross reveals God’s person (who he is), but also his kingdom (how he reigns).” (121)
Specifically, Jersak addresses how a Christlike God shapes our understanding of:
• The wrath of God
• The presence of evil in the world
• The atonement
• Christian discipleship
Jersak is on to something in his discussion of God's wrath, but he never quite "got there," and he didn't support his conclusions well. He needed a better editor. Though on occasion he quoted church fathers, his points would have been much stronger and perhaps clearer if he had grounded the book more deeply in their writings. I struggled to decide whether or not to give the book 3 or 4 stars.
In spite of some big name endorsements (Eugene Peterson, Richard Rohr, and the forward written by Brian Zahnd), there were no Orthodox endorsements. He did dedicate the book to his Orthodox Spiritual Father. I'm not sure if he had fully converted at the time he wrote it.
What was brilliant was the idea that God is Christlike. He compares the Christlike God to un-Christlike images of God that permeate the Church today: the doting grandfather God, the deadbeat dad God, the punitive judge God, and the Santa Claus God. But if God is Christlike, then why all the commands to slaughter people in the Old Testament? Why the prophecies of bloody judgment? And what does the cross reveal about God? With more attention given to the Church Fathers, he could have done a better job answering these questions. In many places the book came across as a good rough draft.
Part 2 describes a God who reigns through love rather than control, a “Cruciform God.” Cruciformity takes the form of divine consent – God’s relinquishing control to natural law and human autonomy, Jesus’ submission to his Father’s will, and his consent to suffer the hostility of humans, all of which shape Jersak’s understanding of the atonement. “Rather than control and coerce, God-in-Christ cares and consents to suffer with us and for us.” (133) It’s laying down of divine privilege and emptying himself of divine power that reveals the nature of God and his method of ruling. God participates in our world by becoming human and suffering all our hostility. Needless to say, this is not penal substitionary atonement.
Jersak's understanding of atonement shapes his response to the problem of evil and suffering. God is not the author of evil, but he has consented himself to it – like Aslan does to the White Witch in Narnia. God is all-powerful, but “his power is not akin to control.” (171) So how is God’s power manifest? He is all-powerful as the Creator who establishes and sets the limits of the universe. He is all-powerful as the one whose love and grace know no limits. He is all-powerful in that there is nothing in the universe that can separate us from his love. The cross doesn’t solve our understanding of evil and why it exists, but it reveals and responds to it.
Part 3 is an explanation of what he means by “unwrathing God.” Jersak suggests that the phrase “the wrath of God” is a metaphor for what Greg Boyd calls “organic” or “intrinsic” judgment. The wrath of God is built into the fabric of reality in that sin carries its own penalty (Rom. 6:23), but God doesn’t actively punish. Living in sin is its own punishment, which is why Paul describes God’s wrath as giving people over to their sinful desires (Rom. 1:24, 26, and 28). Jersak provides us with much material to think about in this section, though it raised many unanswered questions in my mind. First, it doesn’t appear that all biblical examples of God’s wrath can be attributed to natural law and human freedom, as he tries to do. Stories like the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Egyptian plagues, Jesus' clearing of the Temple, and the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira don’t seem attributable to natural law or human evil. Second, there are too many scriptures that refer to the wrath of God to assume that this is just a metaphor for something less obvious. That doesn't mean that God's wrath is like ours, but Jersak seems to claim that wrath is not something that can be attributed to God at all.
In his own words, “This, then, is what I mean by the ‘unwrathing of atonement.’ Yes, every being on the planet is destined for wrath (Eph 2:3). Wrath, not as the vengeance of an angry God, but as the process of perishing under the curse and decay of sin. And what did God do? He unwrathed us! He freed us from sin’s slavery and unwrapped us from death. How? By wrathing Jesus in our place? No! By becoming one of us and, as Jesus, overcoming death by his great mercy!” (262-263)
In Chapter 14 Jersak argues that the gospel isn’t that when we turn our backs on God, God turns his back on us until he sends Jesus to suffer his wrath in our place. Rather, when we turn our backs on God, the wrath we experience is life without God or life lived as objects of a divine love we don’t want. He explains this using a simple illustration of “The Gospel in Two Chairs.” Rather than seeking to punish us, the Good News is that God is pursuing us. He went with Adam and Eve out of the Garden. He protected Cain after he murdered Abel. He maintained relationships with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in spite of their faithless disobedience. He sits with the Samaritan woman, parties in the home of a tax collector, and eats pork with the Gentiles. He justifies the ungodly and while we were yet sinners, he dies for us. We can read the Bible as stories of God punishing or pursuing those who forsake him.
Which paradigm will we choose?
Which God will we become like?