Could God Have Come Up With a Better Way to Forgive Sinners? "Yes," says Richard Dawkins

The celebrated English atheist Richard Dawkins wrote on his blog some praise for the King James Bible in anticipation of the 400th anniversary of this translation (2011). In Dawkin's last paragraph in his post of praise for the KJV he writes:

"I have drawn a veil over the New Testament misogyny of Paul, the founder of Christianity: or the Pauline obscenity of every baby being born in sin, saved only by the divine scapegoat suffering on the cross because the Creator of the universe couldn’t think of a better way to forgive everybody."

I think the celebrated atheist's understanding of Paul's misogyny is false, misguided by mideival misogynysts who misinterpreted Paul. However, the purpose of this post is not to deal with Dawkin's incorrect assumptions of Paul's view of women, but rather to point out--and refute--the phrase that sinners are:

"...saved only by the divine scapegoat suffering on the cross because the Creator of the universe couldn't think of a better way to forgive anybody."

????

I would like to ask the venerable Dawkins how he thinks a capital criminal should be punished. Should a murderer be put to death? Should a pedophile be isolated? Should a thief be imprisoned? Should the envious, selfish, hateful and cruel person be praised instead of judged? What would you do with criminals if you were the perfectly righteous and holy Supreme Judge of the universe?

Methinks you are considering God all together like you think of yourself. You see Him as frail, weak, and impotent. You think He should forgive in the same manner we forgive others. We ignore the sin of others because we see our own sins. We justify the sins of others because we make excuses for our own sins. None of us love others enough to honestly and clearly identify sins, make no excuses or justifications for them, and then bear the just and righteous penalty due them. When is the last time you saw the brother of a murder victim go to the electric chair for the murderer? When is the last time you knew of the mother of a daughter who has been raped go to prison for the rapist and then spend the rest of her life behind bars arranging for the very real, emotional and spiritual healing in the life of that rapist? Who BOTH bears the penalty of sinner and loves that same sinner enough to bring him effectual change? I would propose you have never seen, nor will you ever see, such righteousness and love--except in the Creator of the universe.

"...saved only by the divine scapegoat suffering on the cross because the Creator of the universe couldn't think of a better way to forgive anybody."

My prayer for you is that your eyes may be opened to the holy and righteous nature of your Creator, the true nature of your sins against Him, and the remarkable love required to compel Him to pay for sins at the cross by bearing the righteous punishment due sinners. The teaching of the cross may be moronic (foolish) to you, but it is the only method and message of deliverance given to sinners by God.

Were I in your shoes, I may not understand it, I may not accept it, and I may even think it moronic ... but on the remote possibility that I may one day answer to the Creator who gave His Son for sinners, I would think twice before mocking Him by suggesting He could have come up "with a better way to forgive" sinners. By the way, Dr. Dawkins, you proposed no better way yourself.

The Two Guarantees You Have In Life Have Nothing to Do With Health and Wealth

There is as much power in the testimony of a Christian man who dies of cancer while in love with Jesus as there is in the testimony of a Christian man who is healed of cancer and is in love with Jesus. There is no more of God's grace and favor on the life of a woman who is miraculously rescued from a sinking ship than there is on the life of another woman who drowns as a result of the sinking of that same ship. I have heard stories of Christian women who have been saved "by angels" from the wiles of rapists and murderers, but I also know wives of Christian missionaries and pastors who have been brutally raped and murdered. God's love, favor and acceptance reside upon the latter group of Christian women as much as the former group.

I recently heard a minister who says that God told him to "give away everything" and then God multiplied his wealth ten fold because of his obedience. That message is preached to the shouts and applause of thousands. I would love to hear a Christian minister say God told him to "give away everything" and when he did, he became materially poor and has remained so for years, but he possesses all the riches he needs in knowing Jesus Christ. I would also love to hear as much thunderous applause from those who hear that startling kind of message. Why? Because there is more power and substance in the latter testimony than in the former.

Why is it that we Western evangelicals put so much emphasis on "victory," success," and "material blessings?" The only guarantees any of us have in this life is that God loves us and He will never leave us. You may not be healed. You may not be materially blessed. You may not have a successful marriage. You may suffer at the hands of a brutal criminal. You may find out you are dying and there is no cure. You may receive bad news today. Yet our lives in Christ are built upon a much more of a solid rock than our perfect circumstances.

Some of us ought to go live in 10/40 window among radical Islamists, massive poverty, and barren wastelands of dry, dusty earth. It might help us realize that when our Christian messages of comfort revolve around material answers to our desparate prayers, the content of our message has been materially corrupted.

One of our church members received some difficult news the other day. I sat down and wrote a letter of encouragement. I felt impressed to send a poem with the letter and penned the following to lift the spirits of our church member. Maybe today God can use the poem to encourage those of you who may not be having  things happen in your life the way you want, or worse, the answer to your prayers are exactly opposite of what you have requested.

My Lord's Guarantee

There are days you’ll hear news that burdens your soul.

Words will come that cause you to feel less than whole.

Those times are planned by Me for a special reason,

To give you My comfort in your particularly dark season.

I may not make always make things perfect and secure,

But I will show you two things that are absolutely sure.

My unconditional love for you will never change or abate.

And your life is not in the hands of earthly chance or fate.

I have taken hold of you and supported you by My hand,

To ensure the evil around you will not forever stand.

Assurance of My love is found not in what you can see.

It is established in the personal faith you have in Me.

It may be that I designed this afflication to end with death.

For this reason you must trust Me with your every breath.

You came to this world with nothing but My love for you,

And it is this unfailing love that will see you through.

When One's Definition of Sin Becomes Relevant, One's Dying to Sin Becomes Irrelevant

Our church hosts weekly meetings for people who are struggling to handle the pain their addictions to certain activities brings them. We are a host church that practices love and grace to all those who darken our doors, accepting the sinner wherever he or she is in life. We teach those who come to our recovery and restoration ministries how the greatest pleasures in this life come from our personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus. Jesus (a contraction of the Hebrew "Jehoshua" which means "He shall deliver") is the Messiah (Greek: Christ), the One anointed by God to deliver us from the bondage of our sins and the false belief that real pleasure comes from crossing boundaries God has drawn for our good.

Periodically we have hosted a ministry called Exodus International, a ministry of men and women who have struggled with homosexual sin, but are learning what it means to look to Jesus in faith that He will deliver them from their sins (Matthew 1:21: "You shall call His name Jesus, for He will deliver His people from their sins"). We open our arms to the people who come to conferences sponsored by Exodus, many of whom are not even sure that homosexuality is even sin. Ironically, many adulterers who come to our Celebrate Recovery meetings are not sure their sexual activity is wrong either ("How can something that feels so good with someone I love so much be considered 'sin'?").

Al Mohler published today an excellent article entitled So Why Is Incest Wrong? Mohler writes about David Epstein, a professor of political science at Columbia University. Dr. Eptein's wife also teaches at Columbia, and he previously taught on the faculties of Harvard and Stanford. Last week, Dr. Eptein was arraigned before a judge in Manhattan, charged with a single count of felony incest. According to authorities, Professor Epstein was for several years involved in a sexual relationship with his adult daughter, now age 24. Reading the statements by Dr. Epstein's attorney, arguing that Professor Epstein loves his daughter and that there is nothing unhealthy about a consensual, incestuous relationship between adults, I reflected back to something I had read earlier.

A little over three years ago three former leaders of the Christian ministry Exodus International, apologized for their involvement in Exodus and renounced their belief that homosexuality was "sin."  The three early leaders of this Christian ministry, Darlene Bogle, Michael Bussee, and Jeremy Marks, each explained what brought them to their change of heart. Darlene is very specific about the event that caused her to see that "what she had been teaching (i.e. "homosexual behavior is sin") was dead wrong." She writes:

As I was teaching at an Exodus Conference, a woman walked in and sat on the front row. She had long curly black hair and an infectious smile. Her eyes locked with mine, and although the books say there is no such thing as love at first sight, my heart knew better. Her name was Des. I walked to the other side of the room, recounting my journey of healing by rote, but my brain was whirling with thoughts and emotions that I thought were dead. Imagine, if you can, my shock and horror when I realized in that moment, that what I had been teaching was a lie!

I think Darlene has given us a prime example of the importance of everyone defining sin the way God defines it. The Apostle John writes "Sin is the transgression of the law" (I John 3:4). Since nobody but radical, orthodox Jews would argue that the ceremonial, sacrifical and and civil "laws" given by God for Israel to observe are still in force, the question becomes "To what law does God hold us?"

In other words, how do we know what "sin" is?

The young lawyer asked Jesus this same question, and Jesus responded that loving God and your fellow man are the two laws upon which all the law of God are built (Matthew 22:40). But that begs the question: "Are homosexuality, adultery, drunkenness, sexual immorality, stealing, incest, and other specific activities wrong?" Listen, again, to the Apostle John: "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8). The New Testament Scriptures set forth the objective standard of God in about as clear a fashion as one could hope.

It would seem to me that the problem people in our culture and world have today is the unwillingness to define sin the way God defines it. The issue with people in evanglical churches is that we often wish to add to the law of God things that God never said ("don't put a woman in leadership," "don't drink," "don't dance," "don't go to movies," etc...)  but the problem with those outside the church is that they wish to take away from the law of God.

God has said homosexual behavior, adulterous behavior, drunken behavior, incestuous behavior, stealing, lying, idolatery, murder, sorcery, and other specific behaviors are outside the boundaries of moral behavior He has established His law for mankind. We all cross the line. He sent Jesus to deliver His people from the bondage, penalty and temporary pleasures our transgressions bring by opening up to us to an understanding of the eternal  pleasures we will find in our relationship with the Deliverer, Jesus Christ.

When a person's definition of sin becomes relevant (i.e. "the moment I saw my lesbian lover I knew that my teaching on homosexuality was wrong"), then one's dying to sin becomes irrelevant. Why die to sin when I can't even call it sin? The danger of allowing our definition of sin to become "relevant" is that we lose the power and pleasure of any relationship with the One whose name, title, and function is to deliver us from those very sins that put us in bondage in the first place.

Before, however, we condemn the homosexual, or the adulterer, or the drunkard, or the gambler, or all other "sinners" by pointing our proverbial finger, we might pause to consider this same Jesus has called our pride, our selfishness, our backbiting, and a host of other activities we seem to revel in sin. How can we who know the intrinsic worth of Jesus find fault in those who refuse to die to their sins when we struggle to die to our own?

My prayer is that today, like everyday, Jesus will convince me that I am the greatest of all sinners. My belief in the presence of sin in my life is the glue (faith) that ties me to the Person and work my Deliverer.

How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership by Dr. Alan Johnson

ALAN F. JOHNSON (PhD, Dallas Theological Seminary) is Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Christian Ethics and Emeritus Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE) at Wheaton College. He is the author of commentaries on Paul's letter to the Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation and co-author with Robert Webber of What Christians Believe. His latest book, pictured here, is entitled How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership.

This book features a number of autobiographical accounts as to how various persons have come to change their minds about women in leadership. Well-known evangelical leaders—individuals and couples, males and females from a broad range of denominational affiliation and ethnic diversity—share their surprising journeys from a more or less restrictive view to an open inclusive view that recognizes a full shared partnership of leadership in the home and in the church based on gifts not gender. How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership offers a positive vision for the future of women and men together as partners of equal worth without competitiveness in the work of equipping this and the next generation of Christian disciples for the 'work of ministry' and service in the Kingdom of God.

There have long been attempts by fundamentalists conservatives to paint liberal moderate anyone who believes that women can be as gifted as men, can lead or teach men, or can hold positions of "authority" over men. Aside from the fact it is nigh impossible to define authority the way Jesus defines it (servanthood) and have any objection to women in leadership, it is a breath of fresh air to read a book edited by a bona-fide evangelical inerrantist who is showing that it is not God who is changing His mind about women, but fallen, fallible men who must change theirs.

The next time I hear an evangelical conservative complain that evangelicals are "listening to culture" and "changing their views on women" because of the feminist movement, I very well may send them a free copy of this book that once again proves it is not the Bible that fails men, but men who fail the Bible.