By Sean Dempsey | 08/06/26
(Bible verses sourced using ChatGPT)
Of late it’s become apparent that Christianity, though perhaps serviceable in some respects to well-meaning persons, unfortunately contains several harsh words and/or doctrines rather unsuited to this postmodern, far more civilized age. Chief among these is the regrettable and rather unchristian notion that God is just.
Mercy, naturally, may remain. Love is indispensable, obviously. And forgiveness is particularly useful, since everyone these days desires a large supply of it and prefers that it be distributed without too much examination. But justice introduces rather unpleasant questions concerning ugly concepts such as guilt, repentance, judgment, obedience, and whether a man may reject Christ while still continuing to enjoy all the benefits of accepting Him. Such questions are divisive and should therefore be permanently declared unchristian and quite impolite.
The safest improvement would be to preserve Jesus as a symbol, and a reliable token for our occasional prayers for safety, guidance, or a chief person to beg that the electricity stays on. We therefore should maintain the unconditional reassurance while removing His commands, warnings, judgments, and claims of exclusive authority. Yes, He may continue protecting children as they sleep, healing the sick, and appearing upon tasteful – or even tasteless – wall decorations. (That wooden cross artifact or spare rosary beads look especially good hanging from one’s rearview mirror, afterall.) But a respectable Jesus must stop telling good people to repent, for this suggests that something may be wrong with them, which in this most refined day and age is now regarded as considerably much worse than actually being wrong.
This revised and drastically improved Christianity has many stalwart advantages. It comforts the guilty without insulting them by mentioning their guilt. It forgives the unrepentant without burdening them with repentance. It saves men without requiring them to believe they are lost. Best of all, it essentially permits one to reject Christ entirely, if they so choose, while assuring them that they have accepted the essential spirit of His teaching. They don’t even need to know they have done so, as long as they are good people. Or even if they’re not…it shouldn’t matter too much in the long run. For Jesus is love. He loves everyone. His mercy endures forever. And His loving merciful mercy reigns supreme, does it not?
The only small difficulty is that the stubborn Bible, that most frustrating of Christian books, was composed before modern liberal sensitivity had reached its present refinement; and it, I’m rather afraid to say, describes both God and His Son rather differently.
Reading the early books, Moses calls the creator of both man and the universe “a God of faithfulness and without injustice, whose ways are perfectly just” (Deuteronomy 32:4). The Psalms state that “righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne” (Psalm 89:14). This is unfortunate language, since a foundation is ordinarily considered structural rather than decorative. One cannot remove it merely because the living room furniture would look more welcoming without it.
When God reveals His character to Moses, He describes Himself as compassionate, gracious, patient, loving, faithful, and forgiving. He then adds that He does not leave the guilty unpunished (Exodus 34:6–7). God therefore rather inconveniently appears to believe that mercy and justice coexist.
Amos demands that justice roll like a river (Amos 5:24). Micah commands men to act justly and love mercy (Micah 6:8). Jesus names justice, mercy, and faithfulness among the weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23). I suppose these sacred writers display what might be called a rather childish inability to understand that mercy becomes purer as soon as the frustrating concept justice is eliminated.
That rather inconvenient fool Thomas Aquinas once warned that “mercy without justice produces moral dissolution, while justice without mercy becomes cruelty.” Augustine likewise annoyingly maintained that “God’s judgments are always just and His mercy never owed.” These finely-bearded men of faith must simply have lacked the modern discovery that goodness consists chiefly in refusing to distinguish between the innocent and guilty, the repentant and defiant, or the victim and the man who has injured him.
The New and Improved Christian theology begins with a proposition that is perfectly sound: God is love. It then proceeds to a goodly, liberal conclusion that is perfectly convenient: therefore, because He is love, God must never judge anyone. This is mercy.
I suppose this resembles arguing that because a physician loves his patient, he must never diagnose the disease. Indeed, the truly compassionate doctor should praise the tumor for its authenticity, apologize for the historical stigma attached to infection, send any nurses who criticize the malignant lump to HR training, and assure the dying man that health and sickness are merely two perfectly valid expressions of the human condition. Postmodern Christianity is infinitely kind and respectful. It just tends to leave a lot of rotting tumors and untreated patients in its wake.
Unfortunately, Biblical love is less advanced as all this. Paul writes that love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). It follows that love must recognize evil before it can refuse to delight in it, which is already more moral discrimination than our improved religion permits.
C. S. Lewis annoyingly observed that divine love is more severe than mere kindness. Kindness desires comfort; love desires goodness. A father who watches his child drink poison and declines to interfere may be gentle, respectful, inclusive, and exceptionally calm. He is only deficient in the minor matter of loving their child.
Likewise, a God who gazed pleasantly upon cruelty, murder, betrayal, and oppression would not be merciful. He would be indifferent. Justice is not love’s opposite; it is the refusal of love to declare evil harmless merely because judgment makes polite society uncomfortable.
To avoid this distasteful conclusion, some would choose to divide the work of the holy trinity. God the Father may retain justice, having acquired a reputation for severity, while Jesus is casually assigned love, forgiveness, mercy, social justice, and all matters of public relations. The arrangement is quite tidy, except for the slight annoyance that Jesus rather stubbornly refuses to observe it.
Christ says that the Father has entrusted judgment to the Son (John 5:22). He teaches that some will rise to life and others to condemnation (John 5:28–29). He describes the Son of Man separating humanity, with one group entering eternal life and the other punishment (Matthew 25:31–46).
It would seem, then, that the Judge is Jesus. This unpleasant fact presents quite a difficulty to anyone who has decided beforehand that the ‘real Jesus’ could never have said what Jesus repeatedly says.
His public ministry rather inconveniently begins with the command, “Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). He forgives the adulterous woman and then tells her to leave her life of sin (John 8:11). He warns that unless people repent, they will perish (Luke 13:3). He declares that His words will judge those who reject Him (John 12:48).
The postmodern, liberal Christian may object that such statements are way too harsh. This is quite easily remedied, however! One need only retain the sayings of Jesus that confirm current opinion and dismiss the rest. Problem solved. We may now enjoy the moral authority of Christ without submitting to any authority He actually claimed.
The Cross creates an even greater inconvenience. If forgiveness requires no justice, no repentance, no faith, and no reconciliation, then Christ’s death becomes rather excessive, does it not? God might simply have issued a universal pardon and spared everyone the ugliness. This would have been easier, no? Yet Paul says that all have sinned and that redemption comes through Christ alone (Romans 3:23–24). He says that God presented Christ as an “atoning sacrifice” to demonstrate His righteousness, so that He might be both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3:25–26). The Cross therefore does not show God forgetting about justice. That would be rather convenient, I think. Instead, it shows Him satisfying it. Sin is not suddenly declared imaginary. Its cost is still borne. Mercy does not abolish judgment; yet God assumes the judgment Himself. Forgiveness is free to the sinner precisely because it was not free to Christ!
This is all unnecessarily dramatic if sin is merely a social misunderstanding, but entirely logical if rebellion against God is quite real. Because of this, Paul consequently pleads, “Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). This language implies, with alarming directness, that men are not automatically reconciled merely because reconciliation has been offered…
For a feast may be prepared without the guest’s assistance, but he must still come to the table and sit. Or consider this followup example: a cure may be developed entirely by the physician, but the patient must still receive it. Or this: a bridge may be built by an architect, but praising its engineering from the opposite shore does not magically transport a man across. No matter how hard he wills it or wishes it were so.
It is perhaps trite to quote the most well-rehearsed verse of the Bible. But, as verses go, it can’t get more plain than this: John 3:16 states that God so loved the world, He gave His Son so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. Is this not the proverbial ‘mic drop’ before the postmodern Christian? However, this simple verse is frequently reduced to the first half, since the second introduces the troublesome activity of believing.
The following verses are even less suitable for embroidery. “Whoever believes is not condemned, while whoever does not believe stands condemned already” (John 3:18). “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, while whoever rejects the Son will not see life” (John 3:36).
Jesus said that unless His hearers believe in Him, they will die in their sins (John 8:24). He calls Himself the way, the truth, and the life and says that no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). Peter declares that salvation is found in no one else (Acts 4:12). Paul teaches that a person must confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9–10). John says that those who receive Christ and believe in His name become children of God (John 1:12).
Reluctantly one must admit the New Testament writers appear rather united in the primitive and frustrating belief that accepting Christ differs materially from rejecting Him. This does not mean that faith earns salvation. A beggar does not purchase bread by opening his hand. Faith is the hand. Grace is the gift. Christ is the giver. BUT – the knee must bend, and the hand must actively grab the outstretched gift.
Repentance likewise does not bribe God into mercy. It is the abandonment of the rebellion from which mercy rescues us. A man does not casually boast of extinguishing a fire merely because he consented to be carried from the burning house.
The whole Christian message is therefore less agreeable than the revised and improved version, but rather more coherent. God loves, and because He loves, He judges evil. God is merciful, and because He is just, mercy must address real guilt. Christ forgives, and because forgiveness is not mere indulgence, He thus commands repentance and faith.
The whole Christ is both Lamb and Judge. These two concepts are inexorably linked! He bears sin and condemns it. He welcomes sinners and calls them to change. He offers salvation freely, but does not describe rejection as acceptance or unbelief as faith.
Thus we come to the rub. Men and women must receive Christ as Savior and confess Him as Lord. Whoever believes in Him receives life (John 3:16). Whoever rejects Him remains under judgment (John 3:18, 36). This is not because God’s love is deficient, but because Christ is the form in which saving love has been offered.
Naturally, the evolved Christian may devise for himself or herself a more accommodating faith. In it, no one need repent, believe, obey, surrender, or even desire God. Christ may be admired as a moral decoration while being refused as a required Savior. The Cross may remain as a logo, emptied of judgment, sacrifice, and necessity. That is the hollowed out, postmodern Christianity that we liberals enjoy most. For such a religion is so wonderfully inclusive. It offends no sinner, contradicts no appetite, threatens no comfortable arrangement, and requires no introspective or deep conversion. Its only one, small, inconsequential, barely-worth-mentioning defect is that it possesses neither the God described in Scripture, the Christ who speaks in the Gospels, nor the salvation proclaimed by the apostles. Meh, no great loss, I say!
For this is surely a modest price to pay for making Christianity inclusive, and thus certainly far more Christian than Christ once intended.
