I have to say that I am appreciative to Sharon Baker for requesting that an advance copy of her book, Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You’ve Been Taught about God’s Wrath and Judgment, be sent to me for review. My hope is that, in reading this review, you might be compelled to get a copy for yourself.
As one might gather from the title, Razing Hell challenges Christians to rethink their traditional views of hell and/or eternal punishment and invites them to consider an alternative that is more consistent with the revelation of God in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Sharon Baker believes eternal hell – the belief that God would punish without end those who have rejected him in time – is one of the most disturbing notions in Christianity. Therefore, she asks us to join her on a quest for a new view of hell that permits us to affirm with Scripture that, while nothing impure will enter the gates of God’s holy kingdom (Rev. 21:27), there still will be a day when “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow… and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:10-11; see also Rom. 14:11).”
Baker does not ignore parts of the Bible that depict God as a wrathful deity who endorses and even executes violence against his enemies. As most know, we have no problem finding passages that support this kind of view in the Old Testament. But Baker reminds us that the notion of redemptive divine violence has also been written into the central event of the New Testament – that is the passion of Christ.
Traditional theories of atonement – theories for how God became reconciled to the world through Christ – have most often painted God’s forgiveness as conditioned by an economic exchange at best and as a Father’s violent, punitive act upon his Son at worst. Either way, Baker insists that these theories have left us with a view that “God will not forgive unless God first receives some sort of compensation for sin (46).” This is nothing other than a retributive form of justice that we have projected onto God, Baker claims.
The concern for Baker is not only that these kinds of depictions of God’s justice have influenced our views of hell as eternal punishment. They have also served to perpetuate the myth of redemptive violence in the name of God. But is this the kind of justice displayed in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ? Baker answers with an emphatic “No!” As such, she explains, it is not the way of God. And therefore, it ought not be the way of Christians.
According to Baker, when we read the Bible, we must put on our “Jesus-colored glasses.” For those of us in the Christian tradition, we believe that “Jesus reveals God so that the way Jesus acts is the way God acts. What Jesus says is what God says (70).” We must then read the biblical story through the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Baker believes that, when we do this, we quickly find that “violence and retribution do not fit into the gospel message or into the ethics of God’s kingdom (79).” Thus, we must reconsider the nature of divine justice.
Baker’s alternative to the retributive justice we have often projected onto God is a “restorative or reconciling justice” – a justice that is served by “reconciling with the guilty and restoring the relationship (81).” Assuming a Jewish understanding of sin as giving us a picture of “shackles, something that binds us, that paralyzes us,” she suggests that, rather than requiring payment of some sort, that God forgives means God releases us and “breaks the shackles of sin, much like a crippled person is healed and released from illness (96).”
This kind of forgiveness does exactly the opposite of retribution. Instead of requiring compensation for the offense, God sacrifices and releases us from the need to balance the accounts, redefining the relationship by the hope of a restored future. In other words, in forgiving, God foregoes the need for retributive justice for the sake of a renewed relationship with all that God has created. Rather than requiring payment, God’s forgiveness is the free gift that liberates us from the past and “transforms the future from one of condemnation and retribution to an open future of redemption and reconciliation (98).”
How does this change our approach to hell? For Baker, it causes her to go deeper into the biblical narrative to find an alternative. On the premise that fire is often mentioned in the Bible as a symbol for God’s judgment, she interprets the fire imagery for hell in the New Testament to be no different. It is a metaphor for God’s judgment. The question is, What do we mean by judgment? Biblical passages that use the symbol of fire for judgment often speak of a fire that “burns up whatever is evil, wicked, or sinful,” but leaves behind “whatever is righteous and pure (113).” It seems that this metaphor of fire is a purifying fire of sorts, one that refines metal or precious stones so as to melt away their impurities. Instead of its destruction, it is a renewed object that passes through. Judgment then is nothing other than “part of the reconciling activity of God (122).” In other words, “The wrath of God, rather than anger, is love that burns away the sin, purifying the sinner so that true reconciliation and restoration can take place (122).”
While the metaphor of fire for God’s judgment is helpful, Baker treats Jesus’ words on hell in the New Testament primarily as a teaching device. This would not have been unusual in the day and age of Jesus, she says. It was not uncommon in the Middle Eastern world to use “the most explicitly vivid metaphorical language… to make an important point (136).” And the point was not that people were literally in danger of being thrown into a garbage dump in the southwest region of Jerusalem (Gehenna), but that people were at risk of missing the fresh movement of God among God’s people and in the entire world.
But what do we make of those passages that refer to hell as “eternal punishment,” one might ask. Does this not suggest that people who reject this movement of God will inevitably find themselves engulfed in the eternal flames of hell? No, says Baker. While the translation of the word eternal is inconsistent (sometimes translated as an age, other times as eternity), “the question of eternality as never ending only truly applies to God (138).” Thus, a reference to eternal fire refers not to something apart from God, but “to the fire that surrounds God (138).”
The question remains (and it is the question everyone wants to ask), If this fire that surrounds God is a purifying fire that melts away all that is impure and leaves behind that which is righteous and pure, and we all stand (believers and unbelievers alike) before God on the Day of Judgment to pass through that fire, does anyone perish? Does anyone suffer the torments of hell? While Baker says she is not a universalist, that she believes “God respects the freedom given to us to choose for ourselves whether or not we want a relationship with God,” she also questions whether there will be anyone at all, in the aftermath of God’s judgment, who will reject God (141). After all, “Only something impure could reject God (145).”
What I gather from Baker’s conclusions is that the purpose of Jesus’ death on the cross and announcement of God’s kingdom was not to satisfy the wrath of his Father and pay a penalty for sin or to sweep us off our feet so that we could one day go to heaven. Rather, at the cross Jesus put God’s forgiveness on display for the world to see, showing what God was willing to do to establish the earthly reign of his kingdom and invite all of us to be a part of it despite our sin. She says, “The very nature of our reconciliation with God through Jesus makes us God’s agents, God’s ministers of reconciliation – not so that we can work to keep people out of hell, but so we can transform the world through reconciliation (176).” In other words, salvation is now. Salvation is the invitation to enter the kingdom of God today and realize that God has forgiven us though we often do not know what we are doing.
Baker admits that she does not “know with absolute certainty what will happen at the end of time… how God will see that justice prevails or that every knee will bow or every tongue confess Jesus as Lord (180).” She does know, however, that retributive justice and redemptive violence continue to threaten our world. ”As we go about our business,” she says, “the world seems to become more and more violent. Innocent multitudes of people suffer injustice and violence every second of every day (180).” Her answer is to give up the idea of retribution altogether, which includes our distorted notions of hell and God’s justice.
In my view, what drives Sharon Baker to reconsider traditional views of hell, God’s wrath, and judgment is the fruit that such views have born in the world. &nbs
p;If we believe we have been called to imitate a God who requires the violent punishment of his Son in order to forgive and torments countless others in the eternal flames of hell, this will most certainly influence our pursuit of peace and reconciliation here on earth. And it has. Instead of embracing the radical notion of forgiveness toward restoration, we continue to exact justice through violent means. While some will disagree with, and outright condemn, her conclusions based on their understanding of biblical revelation and/or Church tradition, I think the value of Baker’s work in this book is in her courage to call traditional theological foundations into question on the basis of the immense amount of violence and destruction such views have caused historically.
Do not get me wrong. Baker’s theological proposals have a biblical argument that demands consideration. I happen to think, however, that the strength of her argument is in the practical urgency for alternative views of God’s justice. It is a tragedy that, among those who uphold the banner of redemptive violence (especially at a global level), the voices of Christians are often the loudest. What Sharon Baker sets out to do in Razing Hell is remind those who follow Jesus that the way to peace is through restoration and reconciliation, not retribution. This is fundamental to the Good News of Jesus Christ. And yet, our traditional notions of hell contradict this very claim. If we are going to be agents of God’s kingdom of peace and justice here on earth, we best go deeper into Scripture and tradition for an interpretation of hell that more closely reflects the revelation of God in the life and teachings of Christ. Baker does just this. And, while volumes could be written on some of the topics she has chosen to address, she has accomplished the difficult task of writing a thoughtful book on hell that is accessible to the average Christian reader. I look forward to the conversations this book will most definitely spark!
posted August 7, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I have always thought the entire theory of blood atonement was us projecting our sense of justice onto God. If someone has sinned against us, we don’t show mercy; we want them to suffer a given amount and/or pay us back, and so we perceive God as the same way.
There is a lot of this attitude in the debate over immigration. Locally, Christian organizations are helping to circulate petitions to make our immigration laws “much more punitive.”
The same for eternal Hell. We want to consider ourselves as future citizens of heaven, and there’s no advantage to that if everyone gets in. We want those borders enforced by God.
posted August 7, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Hell is having to wait to read this book! Thanks, Nate, for the review, and thanks Sharon for what I’m sure will be a great book.
posted August 7, 2010 at 9:43 pm
“It seems that this metaphor of fire is a purifying fire of sorts, one that refines metal or precious stones so as to melt away their impurities. Instead of its destruction, it is a renewed object that passes through.”
Does she conflate refinement with renewal? The scripture is clear that the renewal happens through Christ. If you refine that which has no essence down to it’s essence, you are left with nothing.
So even if the language is symbolic of something more benign, we are still left with a spiritual death.
We are also left with a Christ who abandoned his penchant for well-crafted metaphors in order to employ confounding hyperbole in answering one of the most important questions facing his followers. Consider his evocation of the camel and the needle. It is concise, conveys it’s meaning contextually, and is not at all confusing.
Suddenly, the same Jesus is painting the picture of a lake of fire renewing the spirit, and suggesting that eternal torment only applies to God because only God is eternal? That doesn’t make sense to me.
I would rather focus on doing away with the myth of redemptive violence (as well as the myth that any form of retribution or Earthly justice must fall into this paradigm) than present an argument that could mislead people into going to hell.
Even if I cede the argument that Christians are engaging in violence in hopes of redeeming the culture (a generous concession if you ask me) it is the theological question that matters here.
posted August 7, 2010 at 10:57 pm
Thank you for the interesting review, Nate. I look forward to reading Dr. Sharon Baker’s theological presentation in the book. I agree with her that retributive justice may lead to justification of present violent outcomes. ISTM, in fact, that retributive justice looks an awful lot like retaliatory “justice” when it dons human flesh. Frankly, it often looks just like backlash and responding in kind! But God, incarnate in Jesus Christ, does not look like retaliatory justice vs unrepentant sinners. Rather the Father’s abundant love reaches out to the broken sinners who harm themselves & one another out of their own brokenness. Jesus was sinned against even unto death and did not retaliate against sinners, but by speaking words of truth and maintaining utter faithfulness to the Father.
Working in reconciliation ministry and seeing the gospel applied in broken relationships has changed my understanding of hell, too. Forgiving someone who’s wronged us requires both NT words of us — “letting go” as the Hebrew LXX and NT Jewish writers used aphinmi (I wish I knew how to put Greek text in these posts!), and “giving grace” as Paul’s & Luke’s wording put it. The forgiver needs to forego retaliation in heart, word and deed toward the other, and trust God to bring justice. The forgiver absorbs the cost of the other’s sin vs him/her and yields that cost to God. We who are forgiven need to be forgivers of those who’ve sinned against us, giving grace, blessing and not cursing, loving our enemies…
Sometimes we wonder where we’ll get the strength to turn the other cheek yet again. (“How many times…?” Peter asked.) Yet, empowered by the Holy Spirit and humbled by our own sinfulness unto flesh’s death, we are able to draw upon new life in Christ.
I’ve had fellow Christians equate this humility of forgiving and giving grace to those who’ve sinned against us with “being a doormat.” Not at all! We are called to speak truth and stand for righteousness, always, fearlessly, and faithfully. To speak truth and not to draw out our carnal weapons to defend ourselves and attack those who’ve attacked us requires spiritual strength beyond ourselves. This is exactly where we see the power of God at work, when we are willing to be “crucified with Christ” loving those who’ve sinned against us.
So, yes! As Nate summarized Baker’s thoughts, If we are going to be agents of God’s kingdom of peace and justice here on earth, we best go deeper into Scripture and tradition for an interpretation of hell that more closely reflects the revelation of God in the life and teachings of Christ.
posted August 7, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Drat! That first bold in the first paragraph was incompletely closed after just “not”! sigh… Greek text, html tags… Sorry to leak bold on the comments’ page, again, Scot!
posted August 8, 2010 at 9:41 am
Although not the main point of the book, I think this is refreshing since it provides an alternate reason for the cross and death of Jesus. It has increasingly not made sense to me that Jesus (God) would pay God to redeem us from the penalty of our sins. Although I am not sure of the implications of this theology – seems heretical compared to all I have learned – it is refreshing and makes me want to know the real Jesus more.
posted August 8, 2010 at 10:22 am
I am fixing to go to Sunday School and worship service this morning at a small, country Baptist church here in beautiful Southern Missouri.
We will do many things that are offensive to some readers of this Christian blog.
1. We will acknowledge that we need a Savior because we were born in sin, hellbound and undeserving of eternal life in heaven with the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
2. We will thank God for the good news that He sent his son Jesus Christ as our Redeemer to die on a cross, shedding his blood to pay the penalty for our sins, to free us of our sin nature and make us fit for life in heaven instead of hell.
3. We will praise God for His grace and mercy that is available to us by faith in His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
4. We will be encouraged to live each day, each hour and each minute as servants of Jesus Christ by serving others, and we’ll be given the opportunity to volunteer for one of our various ministries to local people; we’ll also give money that will be used to support Baptist missions around the world.
5. We will also be encouraged to share with our co-workers, our friends and anyone else the Lord directs us to the good news that Jesus has died for each of us to save us from sin, death and hell.
We are a traditional congregation, not an emerging, neo-evangelical one. I was surprised to read in the book review that it is Jesus-worshiping people like us who are helping make the world more violent.
posted August 8, 2010 at 12:51 pm
So I am going to be like one of those annoying people who post a book review on Amazon: Base my review on other’s review comments (Nathan Wigfield) rather than on my reading of the book itself (Razing Hell)!
Some thoughts that popped up while reading Nate’s review:
1. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”: Does this automatically mean that we are meant to embody 100% of the attributes or behaviors of God? Another way of asking this, is it possible that God could or would do something that we are not meant to emulate, because he is God and we are not? I tend to think there should be a distinction between “what a passage means” and “what we should do about it”. Putting on “Jesus-colored glasses” could possibly infer that our response to the passage should inform our interpretation of the passage.
2. Trying to distance “payment” from “shackles”: Just how separate were the concepts of debt and bondage during Jesus’ time? The parable of the unmerciful servant seems to do nothing to try and separate the two concepts from each other. Was that part of the parable indicative of the two concepts during that time?
3. “Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”: Should this figure in?
4. “God respects the freedom given to us to choose…”: Brings to mind the very end of C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, where all the created beings of Narnia ran through the big door and glanced at Aslan on their way through.
5. “…not so that we can work to keep people out of hell, but so we can transform the world through reconciliation”: This is setting up a dichotomy, does anything fall apart if the dichotomy is actually not there?
6. “…that retributive justice and redemptive violence continue to threaten our world.”: Again, like my first comment, is this a “meaning of the passage” problem, or a “response to the passage” problem? If in all of the history of Christendom we had gotten the understanding of the narrative right, from the very beginning (AD 33 – AD 2010), would there have been less of a history of violence and wrongdoing perpetuated by those claiming to follow Christ? I’m not trying to set up a straw man, but merely point out that injustice and violence may be more of a function of us sinning rather than us getting the meaning wrong.
7. Lots and lots of stuff from Matt. 21 ? 25 that I need to consider in light of this way of thinking, like ?bring those wretches to a wretched end?, ?destroyed those murderers?, ?’Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth?, ?He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites?, ?Open the door for us!; I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.?, ?throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth?, ?’Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels?, ?Then they will go away to eternal punishment?. How?s that for a run-on sentence? Anyways, in all of these instances, was Jesus using ?explicitly vivid metaphorical language… to make an important point? so that people would not miss ?the fresh movement of God among God’s people and in the entire world?? Why does his vivid metaphorical language repeatedly employ consistent themes? Does this imply that being ?thrown out into the darkness? (thrown by others) is metaphorically equivalent to a person choosing to miss the movement?
posted August 8, 2010 at 1:43 pm
“We are a traditional congregation, not an emerging, neo-evangelical one. I was surprised to read in the book review that it is Jesus-worshiping people like us who are helping make the world more violent.”
I don’t think the reviewer is referring to specific acts of violence. In some circles, it is taken as a given that conservative Christians supported the war in Iraq because we believed our Christian leader (G.W. Bush) was enacting God’s vengeance for 9/11. Imperialism also fits into this somehow.
No, they did not consult us before forming this consensus. I was surprised as well to discover this is what I believe.
posted August 8, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Is it possible that there is conceptual space to be found between “retributive” and “restorative” justice? If something which can be loosely described as “the wrath of God” is inflicted on the finally impenitent, need this mean that God personally wishes to “get even” with his enemies in some kind of cathartic release of vindictive punishment? Could it instead mean that the proud shall not be left in their pride, that the cruel will be faced finally with their own cruelty, etc? C. S. Lewis points out that even if we feel nothing but mercy for the arrogant man who takes advantage of others all his life, that we will nevertheless intuit that it is wrong for him to go on in the next life thinking he has gotten the last laugh. I think that much of the current discussion of this issue demonstrates that our theological polarities often reflect a lack of imagination.
posted August 9, 2010 at 9:53 am
Kevin and Ozarksboy: I think the disconnect is a matter of perspective. I am from your “mainstream,” suburban conservative, Christian culture and as I’ve grown spiritually, I’ve become increasingly saddened by those I know that are devout, authentic Christians yet equate violence with justice. The most rabid, pro-war people I know are all Christians. There is surprisingly little concern and a great deal of resistance when questioned about support for an action that has cost tens of thousands of innocent lives in light of Jesus. My own family, practically overflowing with conservative evangelical clergy, seems to hold a “better them than us” attitude coupled with a huge disdain for muslims that I wish I could say was unusual. To the conservative mindset I’ve had direct contact with in large quantities, the value of a non-American Muslim life is somewhere between gnat and chimpanzee. They would be horrified to read that, but their actions, words and votes would indicate otherwise.
While I am not a pacifist, I am continually surprised at how cavalier the conservative Christians I know are about the use of deadly force. I’m also absolutely mind boggled at the number of them that think the invasion of Iraq was justified by 9/11 or that it’s better to start a war elsewhere than risk it on our soil (I didn’t make that one up unfortunately).
On topic though, I’ll agree with Kevin in that I think the author is ignoring huge swathes of Scripture. “Jesus Colored Lenses” is often the sort of phrase I hear from people trying to fit God into their philosophical image of how they believe the world should be. They tend to be the sort that doesn’t think love ever has any hard edges; that it’s all cuddles.
I’m in a different camp than the fiery torture for all eternity crowd, but I’m not convinced from the review that the author is taking anything more than a slightly modified universalist approach where there is little to no consequence regarding our choices.
posted August 9, 2010 at 11:57 am
I don’t think “Jesus Colored Lenses” is the wrong approach to scripture at all. In fact, I would assume it’s the majority view of how we should approach scripture. Perhaps the term is most often used by the people you suggest, but I do think it is the right view. Jesus is the last, best, revelation of God that we have. All scripture should be read through His revelation.
posted August 9, 2010 at 12:44 pm
@Jeremy
“Iraq was justified by 9/11 or that it’s better to start a war elsewhere than risk it on our soil (I didn’t make that one up unfortunately).”
I’m taking your comments out of order because I think this speaks to the essence of the topic. What you describe above is a relatively mainstream approach to military strategy. It was the basis for our engaging Europe in World War 2. JFK, no conservative evangelical he, certainly bought into it. Barack Obama seems to be an adherent.
I gather from your parenthetical remark that you find this attitude beyond the pale. Would this be an example of the rabidly pro-war position you ascribe to conservatives?
“I’ve become increasingly saddened by those I know that are devout, authentic Christians yet equate violence with justice. The most rabid, pro-war people I know are all Christians.”
That is a disconnect, because I have yet to encounter anyone who is at all rabid about war. This perception is the assessment of a collective of people who are opposed to war generally, and opposed to the Iraq war specifically. It is a caricature at best.
What Christian writer is equating justice with violence? (note: this is not the same as arguing that violence is sometimes necessary in carrying out justice). What writer is out there rabidly supporting war? Who seriously embodies these ideals? Where is the hard evidence that this is the mindset of conservative Christians?
A more plausible assessment is that conservative Christians have no a priori opposition to any particular war. These Christians felt, as virtually every American did, that it was important to take Saddam Hussein out of power one way or the other. Since most conservative Christians are Republicans, they were more inclined to support the methods of a president who shared their ideological viewpoints.
Is it ideal that Christians synthesize their ethics through a partisan lens? No, but conservatives are scarcely the only ones guilty of doing so. I distinctly recall one liberal Christian comparing Barack Obama to Joshua, who was no pacifist.
What happens is that adherents to opposing political ideologies tend to caricature each other’s positions (gnats and chimpanzees? really?) This is inevitable when it comes to politics, so I take it in stride, but if we are going to allow it to impact our theology, we are going to make some pretty terrible decisions, and advocate some terrible ideas.
posted August 9, 2010 at 7:22 pm
This topic is not one that is well addressed by the pooling of our collective ignorance. Only by rigorous exegetical study can we make a sound determination.
posted September 2, 2010 at 10:38 am
Looking at Scripture with “Jesus-colored glasses” sounds like approaching God’s Word with an agenda instead of letting scripture speak for itself. Scripture interprets itself, we don’t need to add anything unless we are so dissatisfied with what scripture says we want to change God’s word and make it fit our own words. Instead of a God centered faith we evolve into a man-centered faith!
posted October 25, 2010 at 9:26 pm
I wonder if any of the reviewers have read Prof. Baker’s book as opposed to only reading the review? She is gentle, systematic, Biblical, and respectful in the way she handles people’s questions and her study. Once I started it I was not able to put it down and finished it in 3 days. Since then I have been comparing her beautiful images of God’s “hell”, “fire”, “wrath” and “punishments” with articles in the Anchor Bible dictionary and in discussion with theologians. The picture she presents is important because it is so consistent with Jesus’ life and ministry. Her pointing out where Jesus STOPPED reading when he read from the Isaiah scroll is a powerfully thought provoking invitation to consider how Jesus corrected contemporary understandings of God.
This is an especially important book for those in dialogue with fundamentalist Christians and Biblical literalists. I will be using it in Bible studies with youth and adults from here on out.
posted August 21, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Incredible – somehow this “enlightening” discovery was missed by millennia of scholars, some of whom did nothing BUT examine the Bible, and they all missed this important message. It is always good to remember that those things that are possible are limitless, but those that are PROBABLY much less so. “RH”‘s view is only possible, and quite frankly, give one little impetus for any review of, or changing one’s life, sins. Sad.