Every healthy Christian struggles through the dark corners of our story and doctrine, the tough teachings that Joshua Ryan Butler calls "The Skeletons in God's Closet." Butler, Pastor of Local & Global Outreach at Imago Dei Community in Portland, Oregon, has wrestled too, and in a new book, offers pastoral, honest insights specifically addressing some of the most difficult bone-piles, including hell, Old Testament "holy war," and judgment. I caught up with Butler for his take on speaking faithfully to our pressing questions. – Paul
Paul: Your book, Skeletons in God's Closet, tries to help people who wrestle with topics like hell, judgment, and holy war. Are these personal topics for you?
Josh: Yes! Back in college, I had a radical encounter with Jesus, but friends immediately bombarded me with questions like, "So do you think I'm going to hell now?" "How can you follow such an arrogant and violent religion?" I was at a loss for how to respond.
I didn't bring up these topics—I just loved Jesus. But I didn't want to ignore the hard parts of my faith, and I wanted to love my friends well, so I began personally grappling with these questions.
In a strange way, I wrote this book for myself fifteen years ago: if I could go back, these are the things I would share, the paradigm-shifts and insights that have helped me.
I want to help people reframe these topics and reclaim a greater confidence in the goodness of God.
Now as a pastor, I've counseled countless people in our city who struggle with these questions. Talking with followers of Jesus wrestling with their faith, parents seeing their children walk away from church, and skeptics astonished that we believe God (if these topics are true), is really good. But I've found most people have a caricature today of what the Bible teaches, and what mature Christian orthodoxy has historically proclaimed. So I want to help people reframe these topics and reclaim a greater confidence in the goodness of God.
Culturally, these are very old objections to our faith. Why do you feel the need to address these "skeletons" at length today?
Our popular caricatures make God look like a sadistic torturer, a cold-hearted judge, or a genocidal maniac. But these caricatures often arise because we have significant parts of the broader story wrong. We get hell wrong because our broader story of heaven and earth is off. We misunderstand judgment because we misunderstand salvation. Our picture of holy war is distorted because we miss its radical contrast with the unholy wars of our world.
I've found when we get the bigger picture right, these topics start to fit smoothly again—the colors, shape, and size are right—in a beautiful bigger picture that proclaims loudly, boldly, and clearly the goodness of God.
These topics become like puzzle pieces in the wrong jigsaw puzzle: we're trying to cram them in, but the colors, shape, and size are all off because they're in the wrong bigger picture. I've found when we get the bigger picture right, however, these topics start to fit smoothly again—the colors, shape, and size are right—in a beautiful bigger picture that proclaims loudly, boldly, and clearly the goodness of God.
For example, hell is not an "underground torture chamber" God creates to torture sinners, but a destructive power we unleash that God has promised to redeem his world from—it represents an extravagant act of mercy. Judgment is not "churchgoers go to heaven, everyone else goes to hell," but God coming to raise humanity from death and set his world right by calling things out as they really are—and the results are a shocking surprise. Holy war is not "the strong using God to justify their conquest of the weak," but God arising on behalf of the weak when the tyranny of the strong has raged for far too long—he is the hope of the world.
Mercy, surprise, and hope: this is not what most people expect. We start to see these topics arise because of, rather than in contradiction to, the goodness of God.
How prepared are Christians to entertain and engage such difficult topics?
I think most Christians feel they've only been given two options: either jettison your faith for a universal "love is god" pop-theology, or bang your Bible over folks' heads with a "highway to hell" doomsday-theology. Most Christians don't like either option, but don't feel confident or aware of strong alternatives. My hope has been to resource Christians with a robust alternative: a biblical picture that is historically orthodox, but not what many people today expect.
As a pastor, what temptations do you have to avoid in order to keep a "skeleton" conversation open with someone?
We need a strong willingness to listen. If we truly love people, our goal is not to be the Bible-answer-person with "all the right answers"—nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. And if we truly care, we'll listen.
When someone asks, "How can you believe in hell?" I want to hear more about where they're coming from, to try and understand what's behind the question. So I'll usually ask questions like, "What do you think hell looks like? Why does it seem unfair or cruel? How have you seen people use 'hell' in ways that were unloving or abusive?"
When people share, I've found I'm usually able to say, "I don't believe in that picture either!" Their understanding and experience often looks nothing like the biblical vision. If I care enough to listen, there's a space that's created where the person feels safe enough and respected enough to really want to know my thoughts on the matter as well.
I also think we should be attentive to the Spirit, asking, "Is there something else going on behind this issue?" For example, I can't tell you how many times someone in our church has come to me suddenly "having this problem with God" over such-and-such doctrine, only to find out a few weeks later he was preparing to leave his wife.
I don't think the surface issue was really the issue. Sometimes we want distance from God, so we'll use a caricature—like a "violent, bloodthirsty" God—as an excuse to get away. God didn't create the caricatures, we did. So I've come to believe the caricatures are not only something oppressive we need to be liberated from, but also something constructed we need to repent of—in order to receive the generous embrace of the God who is gloriously good.
How does understanding the "skeletons" change how you lead and preach?
There's a greater confidence in the goodness of God. When you've encountered God's beauty in the places you thought were darkest and toughest, you find a boldness and freedom in it anywhere. But I also think it gives you a greater sensitivity to those you're leading. These are legitimate questions; our people are asking them, our culture is asking them. When the "skeletons" are on our radar, we can anticipate them in the text: we can lead, preach, and teach, in a way that equips our people to experience the joy and hope of the gospel through these topics, rather than in spite of them. They can then in turn share that joy and hope with their neighbors, family, and friends.
Having written a book on the topic, I imagine that you have these issues all figured out now—neatly tied up with a little bow. Am I right?
I wish. I have no desire to present myself as an "answer man" with everything all figured out. But I would say these questions make sense now; they don't rattle me the way they used to. I've gained a much greater confidence in the goodness of God not in spite of these topics, but through them. If I can help folks reclaim a greater confidence in the goodness of God and a fresh vision of the biblical story, I'll be pumped.
Paul Pastor is associate editor of Leadership Journal and PARSE.
