Evangelical Responses to the Holiness/Love Paradox

To review: the fight-or-flight evangelism pitch--a main weapon in the evangelical arsenal of outreach techniques--goes basically like this:

Step one: convince the person that they have sinned (i.e., violated at some time or another the Laws of God). [Technically, some evangelicals will clarify, it's the Holy Spirit that does the convicting here. The evangelist just creates the proper atmosphere for the Spirit to do its divine work.]

Step two: convince the person that their sin--no matter how big or small, no matter how frequent or infrequent--condemns them to an eternity in Hell because God is utterly holy. It's here that extreme descriptions/depictions of hell might come into play (evangelicals are divided as to the utility of such depictions).

Step three: share with them the avoid-this-horrible-fate opportunity that is Jesus. (i.e., God, not wanting you to suffer in Hell forever, sent his son, who was wholly innocent of sin, to suffer and die in your place.)

Step four: convince them to believe in (and, depending on the exact theology, ask for/accept) that salvation, generally through prayer.

Step five: Oh, yes--remind them that in doing so they've made what amounts to an eternal covenant with the living God, and that, as a saved person, they will spend the rest of their lives in service to him. This may entail church membership, baptism, daily Bible reading, evangelism, etc. But, even though human effort doesn't save, the lack of any effort or commitment to Christ post-salvation isn't interpreted as a good sign...

What's the problem? I look back on my younger years and realize that for a very long time, I had little to no problem with this narrative. It's just the Way Things Are. To think otherwise would be to engage in Doubt, which (a la the tenets of fight-or-flight Christianity) signifies a lack of certainty, which in turn bespeaks a faith deficit, which in turn may indicate that you aren't saved after all. Best not to think about it.

As I grew older and met people who didn't go to church, however, people who haven't been brought up in the faith, I came to see how certain elements of this narrative can seem contradictory, even nonsensical. Specifically: the eternity-in-hell element (God's holiness/righteousness) seems to jar with the God-is-love element.

Now, such confusion is nothing new to dedicated evangelists. They're used to hearing and fielding incredulity at the thought that God (who is loving) will judge people forever. I've heard any number of rationales that such evangelists use to explain this incredulity as well as various evangelistic techniques to get past it. Among these rationales/techniques:

People have a wrong idea about love: the world, goes this rationale, defines love as "total acceptance." But that isn't love. How do you convince an unsaved person of this? Use an analogy: If we were to see parents who said "OK, whatever" to anything their children do, refusing to punish or set boundaries, we'd call that irresponsibility, not love. God loves us enough, goes this logic, to give us free will and to experience the consequences of our choices. He loves us enough to let us choose heaven or hell.

People fear a judging creator, preferring a self-made God: Inevitably, evangelical sermons about the intransigence of people to the gospel will lament that in these postmodern times, people place such a value on "tolerance" that any sort of moral or ethical discrimination becomes unthinkable. People think that they are the ultimate authorities on right and wrong, rejecting God's authority. It's no wonder, then, that they have trouble with God's eternal standard. The thing to do, then, is to present them with some "moral absolutes" situations--Was the Holocaust wrong? Is murder wrong? Rape? Child abuse? ("You wouldn't want Hitler to go to heaven, would you?" I've heard several evangelists ask). By securing an "of course those acts are wrong" from people, the evangelist can then draw them into a realization that these are wrong because God said so. Moral absolutes=God=righteousness of judgment=need for salvation.

People refuse to see the love inherent in Christ's sacrifice: That is, people who think that the heaven/hell/salvation set up isn't loving need to think more about just how loving it is that God in his mercy deigned to incarnate himself and die in our place. Here the courtroom analogy often comes into play: "So--you're in court, and the judge has rendered a verdict: guilty. The sentence is Hell. But suddenly, someone, an innocent man, stands up and offers to take your place, to accept your sentence for you. How does this make you feel?"

There are other rationales and techniques for diffusing people's reticence to accept the gospel, but these three are some of the more common. The problem is--the logic behind these three avoids rather than confronts the very real tension between holiness and love in the main evangelical gospel pitch.

Indeed, there are times when I listen to very well-intended, gentle Christians make these sincere arguments, and my blood just boils.

I gotta give a "now wait a minute" speech.

That tomorrow.

JF