I found it interesting how Mark Galli, the managing editor of Christianity Today, drew a gospel lesson from the current furore surrounding the $165 million being paid out to high-leveled executives of the troubled insurance giant AIG (read all about it in The Scandal of the AIG Bonuses).
In the article he wryly notes that this scandal is nothing compared to the scandal of the gospel; “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). The “free bonus” of grace given to totally undeserving miscreants cannot help but incense the masses; unless we happen to be one of the villainous miscreants.
If the gospel we preach doesn’t turn a few heads, and cause the man in the street to cry out at the scandal, the question begs as to whether what we proclaim is truly “good news”?
As Galli says in his conclusion…
I wonder if we are preaching the gospel if we don’t scandalize a few listeners, maybe even ourselves, with the incomprehensible unfairness of it all. When Paul talked about the gospel,many were shocked and appalled. It sounded as if God wanted to reward sinners, to give a bonus to scoundrels! They scoffed, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1). And when they figured out what exactly he was preaching, they got so angry that they told him to fall on his sword, and then formed a mob to run him out of town.
May we be as “scandalous” as Paul as we declare the gospel of the cross on which our Lord bled and died…for us!
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9 responses to “The Gospel of Incomprehensible Unfairness”
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amen. the wonderful scandalous gospel.
Jon, as always, I appreciate your insights. (And the remnants of British colonialism in your spelling: ‘furore’)
You post touches on some heavy pastoral theology issues. For example, anyone who has ever worked in a church has been on the receiving end of the ‘Do you mean to tell me that Hitler would go to heaven if he repented on his deathbed?’ question.
Is there a way to respond to this person with a ‘radical gospel’ without giving an equally smug response like ‘Well, Jesus died for you because you’re a sinner as well.’?
Are we assuming too much about what the person/culture should grasp, and will preaching overcome the human heart?
Dpotter,
This is the way I proceed with the Hitler question. I talk about how if we saw “little Adolf” when he was a two year old boy, we would have seen him play with his hot wheels car and he would have came up to us with a cute smile and want to play. We would pick him up and say, “Oh look at little Adolf, isn’t he so adorable like all of the little kids”. We wouldn’t say, “Look at this genocidal maniac who while order the deaths of millions”. Therefore were we any different than Adolf at age two? The answer is no. Therefore, we all have the same heart, the same raw material as Hitler. And instead of saying ” I have not done what Hilter did”, the statement should be “Why have I NOT done what Hitler did”? Answer: History did not afford you the opportunity. If you you were in the exact historical, familial, cultural situation as HItler, you would do the same things that he did. Then the matter of human freedom comes rushing out as the objection is raised, “No, I would not have made THAT CHOICE!!”
Hey guys. I love the way this thread is starting! Love the intersection of theology and pastoral care, which to me are like two blades in a pair of scissors (useless alone). I sure hope to hear more from you all, whom I sense have major gifts in both these areas.
Dave, I love your response to Dylan. My only addition might be to suggest that we be careful not to skate too close to solely Lockean assumptions about child development. I love your emphasis on the bound will, but some of the bondage we experience is organic.
In other words, we might hear you as saying that we all start out, if we are young enough, with the same raw material, which is later shaped by environmental forces.
But I think it is so important in pastoral care to realize that some people are (most unfairly!) “born with” particular mental and spiritual conditions which other people are not, probably rooted in their brain chemistry (either at conception, or in fetal development or in the first couple years of infancy. Alcoholism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and even a propensity to certain run-of-the-mill sins (violence, sexual dysfunction, cruelty, lying, etc.) may be rooted in some cases very early in infant development.
To say it more briefly, Jeff Dahmer may well have NOT been just like any other cuddly 2 year old. And the same may be true for many of us.
That links back to pastoral care in helping one person having pity for the other — making it easier to free the care from judgment. Because you can see the person groaning under a condition that even better environments may be unable to fix.
Nobody these days wants there to be a real Hell, but everybody these days wants Hitler to be there.
Thank you all for your wonderful insight, and your pastoral responses to tough questions. I would like to approach it from a slightly different angle…
The problem we face pastorally is not so much whether an evil person like Hitler can get to heaven. Rather many people have real difficulty seeing themselves as evil and in desperate need of a Saviour (note the spelling again, D. Maybe if you can learn to spell correctly you’ll finish faster over there!)
We find it really easy to vilify the AIG execs who have been “rewarded” for doing bad. But what if the tables were turned, and you were one of those very same executives? I wonder how many people would truly complain about the irresponsibility if they were actually getting the “free bonus.” May I suggest that few would actually have a problem getting a $6 million bonus for messing up! The problem lies with who is the one paying the bonus. Joe Taxpayer is rightly incensed since he hardly has enough to put food on the table or a roof over his head, so can hardly stand idly by while people run off with his hard-earned tax dollars to the spa.
It makes a world of difference if a private benefactor was benevolent enough to say, she was going to pay the bonus, and in addition was willing to offer this same bonus to everyone. Will the opposition be as vehement? Would we rail against the “unfairness” of it all when we recognise that we never earned anything we had coming to us? This false sense of entitlement is what causes us to bristle at the perceived injustice.
Coming back to the question of Hitler… I wonder how much of the question is born out of our belief that “I’m not so bad, since I’m no Hitler”. So therefore, I am entitled to more than what Hitler gets. We would like to grade sin on a curve. That way, some of us can still make it, as long as we’re not as bad as him.
I know that this may seem pastorally insensitive, but I don’t think that we can skirt the issue of our true human condition. I think to allow a person to avoid it is being pastorally cruel.
In any case, preaching is not what overcomes the human heart… God does by his Holy Spirit!
Love what Jon W just said.
It reminded me a LOT of a wonderful section of the novel by C.S. Lewis (“The Great Divorce”) where a murderer is in heaven and begging a righterous ghost from Hell to hear the word of grace. Especially when Jon W talks about our sense of entitlement.
The passage is reproduced in full on this web page… read it if you have a minute!
http://robertating.blogspot.com/2007/04/great-divorce-by-cs-lewis.html
🙂
I agree wholeheartedly. Thank you.
John,
Thanks for the comment. Yes, I agree that this line of thinking could be taken as saying it is merely environment shapes the person. I was wanting more to emphasize the sinful human heart which can only react to the environment given to us. And since it is a sovereign God that determines both our genetic makeup and our environment, the question comes back to this, Why shouldn’t I have turned out like Hitler? Answer: there is no reason why not. And you can’t chalk it up to choice. You have the same sinful heart as HItler did, that is what I meant by “raw material”. I take your point that there may also be biological and chemical factors we are not aware of as well, but that is not universal. I want to focus on the universal, which is the sinful nature.