Another Defense of the Way of the Master

In an effort to be dialectical about my criticisms of a particular style of evangelism (exemplified in Ray Comfort's "Way of the Master"), I'm putting myself in the shoes of a pro-Way-of-the-Master evangelist. That is, I'm thinking of possible responses to or rebuttals of my initial criticism of the theology/psychology underlying the Way of the Master.

To whit: I argued that focusing the evangelistic conversation entirely on humanity's wretchedness, damnation, and need for salvation, highlighting the imminent threat of hellfire, makes God into a kind of divine tyrant. God threatens humanity with eternal damnation for even the slightest infraction, at any point in a human life--and then expects total love, devotion, and gratefulness for saving people from God's own wrath. This is the action of an abusive spouse or totalitarian dictator, not of a benevolent God.

My initial rebuttal (yesterday) suggested that the God-as-tyrant argument inappropriately assigns human psychology to God. God's holiness--God's intolerance for human sin--is not a psychological quirk, like a germaphobe fussing at a messy counter. Rather, God's holiness is a natural law, like gravitation or electromagnetism; it's a neutral and necessary condition of existence. God is God; humans aren't. To gripe about this makes about as much sense as complaining that eyesight requires light or that animals need oxygen in order to live.

Let me try a different argument today. Namely, that the God-as-tyrant argument underestimates--offensively so--the magnitude of God's love and Christ's sacrifice.

[In the voice of an evangelist responding to a critic]: It's easy to get stuck in the whole idea of divine judgment and hellfire. "Isn't God petty for not overlooking my sin?" That whole argument misses the point: God is willing, eager even, to wipe away your sins. God is so eager to reconcile all people to God that God sent Jesus--dear to him as a beloved son, intimate as God's own self--to suffer and die in our place.

Think about that. In becoming human, God came down to our level, submitting to mortality, to pain, to rejection and loneliness--to the very worst that human existence has to offer. God gave up a measure of what it means to be the deity in order to live with us. For Jesus to suffer and die as He did--that suffering and dying, horrible as it would be for any human--means so much more because it was God doing it. Jesus allowed it to be done to Himself, taking all of humanity's punishment on Himself, when (as the old hymn says) he could have called ten thousand angels at any moment, repairing His human body instantly and vaporizing the nails, the crown of thorns, the whips, and the spear. But he did not. He suffered. He died. The Nicene Creed says "he descended into Hell" for the space of three days--God in Hell, God suffering Hellfire instead of us!

All of these unGodlike acts God did, all for our sake. Jesus substituted Himself for us. And the miracle here is that all we have to do is turn from the myth of our own self-righteousness, believing and trusting in the love behind that sacrifice, and poof! We are as innocent in God's eyes as Christ was. Gravity reverses. We see without light. Natural law shatters in the face of that Grandest of Sacrifices.

So, you see, to question that love, to call that world-changing act of self-sacrifice a petty tyranny--that's exactly like spitting contemptuously in the face of a paramedic who's given you lifesaving CPR.

Or, more exactly: Cornelius Van Til, the great apologist of the early 20th century, once told of watching a tiny child, barely a toddler, on a train. The child's father, hearing her cry, had lifted her up and seated her on his knee. The toddler turned and, in a fit of tantrummy frustration, smacked his face with her little hand.

This scene, Van Til, suggested, reflects our relationship with God. The condition of existence makes us humans helpless infants--less, far less, actually--compared to the infinite majesty of God. That God deigns to bend to our level, lifting us up so we can perceive God's face--this itself is a miracle. And then, for us to respond by slapping his face! Calling his gesture of love and atonement (literally at-one-ment) the work of a dictator!

The point, Van Til continues, is that it is only by God's grace and power that we can reach his face to slap it. God's love exposes Godself to our human contempt--all in the hope that we might respond in love rather than in rebellion.

[back to my own voice]: I'll try one more rebuttal tomorrow.

JF