Thursday Theology: The God Who Steps Back

 

Co-missioners,  

Our brother Peter Keyel’s piece last week—America’s Political Divide and the Wrath of God—sparked strong reactions from some of our regular readers. We the editors are very grateful for this feedback, as it may lead all of us into a deeper conversation.  

In particular, the way Brother Keyel talked about God’s wrath didn’t sit well with everyone. Part of his argument, the way I read it, is aimed at those siblings in Christ who think of President Trump as God’s Cyrus-like instrument in a positive / saving way. I hear Keyel argue they ought to be open to the possibility that God may also be using the president in a negative / judging / punishing way. And, importantly, he adds: “What many miss about God’s wrath is that it is first and foremost directed against us (as opposed to others) as sinners. The only option we have in the face of God’s wrath is repentance. This starts with self-reflection.” 

Nevertheless, the suggestion that the deeds and misdeeds of political leaders, their survival or demise — and indeed societal events as a whole — are in some way God’s own doing can be appalling and offensive to some of us. Especially so on the anniversary of 9/11, and even more so when the headlines are filled with violence, hate, and the unraveling of civic life, as they were last week. Can we really say, “God did this?” The loving Father? The comforting Spirit?? The Crucified God??? 

In the spirit of honest theological conversation, I want to share some of my own thoughts on this topic with you today. What follows is a lightly edited version of something I wrote to a friend as we were both wrestling with Brother Keyel’s article. 

But before we get there, I want to draw your attention to a “Thursday Theology” piece that Ed Schroeder wrote just days (!) after the events of September 11, 2001 and that contributes to this conversation: “Coping with Terror: The Missing R-Word”. It’s a bracing read, identifying God’s “alien work” in the events of that horrible day. Talk about controversial! Not a few people were furious with Brother Schroeder for what he wrote, and they let him know as much. Yet it’s hard to deny that the late Professsor was drawing from rich source material in making his point — no lesser authorities than Dr Luther and Amos! And in hindsight, I think he may have been prophetic. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let’s open this up for discussion in our community. Where do you observe God’s wrath at work these days? And where—thank God—do you hear the Gospel? 

Peace and grace, 
Robin Lütjohann, Co-editor  
for the Crossings Community

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The God Who Steps Back: Wrath, Violence, and Making Sense of It All 

by Robin Lütjohann 

 

Many object viscerally to any direct connection made between troubling events in our world and the biblical idea of God’s wrath. For good reason. We can all think of examples in which public Christians (especially of the fundamentalist variety) have made over-confident pronouncements that this or that natural disaster or violent event is really God punishing [insert hated group here].  

Two distorted pictures come to mind: 

• On the one hand, there’s the idea of God as a fickle tyrant, actively intervening in world events just to “teach us a lesson”— flying off the handle like a cosmic rageoholic, lashing out. 

• On the other hand, there’s a kind of detached determinism, in which every event, including every tragedy, is chalked up to the foreordained and inevitable will of a distant, impassive deity, a clockmaker God that is essentially identical to Nietzsche’s Schicksal (fate).  

The best option we have in response to the latter is a kind of Stoic amor fati — and to the former, I guess…cower in fear and hope for the best? Both are theologically and morally outrageous. They seem to violate the central Christian claim that God is Love—a love that suffers with us and for us in Christ Jesus. 

And yet, God’s wrath in the Bible is a theme so omnipresent that we have to deal with it in one way or another. Truth be told, there are places in the Scriptures where God really does seem to act with a sudden burst of rage. Heck, we might even find some of these depictions of God’s anger rather comforting. Think e.g. of the image in Hosea 13:8, in which God declares through the prophet: “I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs…” Here God the Mama Bear is so passionately protective of Her beloved children, who have been oppressed and exploited by corrupt elites, that She will bare Her teeth and claws if need be to keep the predators away. I don’t know about you, but I’m okay with that.  

Maybe this more likeable image does not outweigh all the other problematic ones. But there is another way to frame this concept that I have found quite helpful as a pastor. When I talk with folks in my congregation about God’s wrath, I often turn to Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 1. Three times, Paul says: “God gave them over…” This, I think, is a key biblical lens for understanding the divine ὀργή—not as intervention, but as withdrawal. In wrath, God steps back. 

It’s a little bit like the impossibly difficult situation of a parent of an adult child who has become addicted to drugs—a scenario many of us know all too well. After repeated interventions and heartache, the parent realizes that continuing to “help” is only enabling self-destruction. And so, with tears and a breaking heart, the parent steps back. Says “no.” Stops intervening. Prays desperately while letting the child hit “rock bottom”. A terribly hard choice that isn’t right for everyone in every situation. But it can be. And likewise, God does sometimes choose to step back and let us deal with life without any help, leaving us to our mess. 

The Deus absconditus “hides his face” (Deuteronomy 31:17–18; Hosea 5:14–15; 9:12; Lamentations 2:3–7) so that the people “eat the fruit of their way” (Proverbs 1:24–31). Examples from τα βιβλία abound: 

• Describing humanity in general, Paul says:“he allowed all the nations to follow their own ways.” (Acts 14:16). This appears to be the default setting of humankind: God’s anonymity and distance. 

• Though bound to Israel in a covenant, God withdraws due to their unfaithfulness, saying through Asaph: “I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.” (Psalm 81:12) 

• As Stephen explains, this withdrawal causes them to succumb to idolatry: “God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven.” (Acts 7:42) 

• Such withdrawal also leaves God’s people exposed to attack by surrounding nations (Psalm 106:41; Judg 2:14–15; 3:8; 10:7; 2 Chronicles 36:15–17). 

• At times, it involves a more subtle “hardening of hearts” which God permits in leaders or the whole people (Isaiah 6:9–10, echoed in John 12:39–40; Acts 28:26–27) — as Paul describes it, “a sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear.” (Romans 11:8; cf. Deut 29:4; Isa 29:10), perhaps even outright delusion (2 Thessalonians 2:10–12) — all of which can certainly be said of the blasphemous idolatry and greedy self-interest that has long run rampant in these United States of America! 

• Or how about this: In Ezekiel 20:25–26, God punishes the people by letting them come up with bad legislation! “I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live.” Sound familiar? 

• Even Jesus says about the holy city of Jerusalem: “Your house is left to you desolate.” (Matthew 23:37–38) And we know what sort of desolation happened to that city about 40 years later! 

There is an observable pattern in the Bible’s narratives: when the nation goes astray, God sometimes chooses to step back (i.e. “hide”) and leave human beings to the consequences of their own chosen chaos and idolatry. The tragic result (both in the Bible and in our world) is that often many of the people who suffer the most are not the ones most directly responsible. Let’s be honest, there seems to be an awful lot of “collateral damage” resulting from God’s hiding. 
I can’t clean that up or make sense of it.  

In fact, my attempt at biblically reframing “God’s wrath” as “stepping back” might not fix the problem of God’s responsibility (culpability?) for the suffering and chaos in our world in the least! In the end, God, who according to the Creed is “almighty”, is still choosing to not intervene and help when He could! The only “solution” to this problem on the level of theological fixes would be to adopt something like Process Theology — a sometimes attractive option, I admit. Many of my colleagues are quite enamored with it. 

But, seems to me, while this may absolve God, it doesn’t solve our earthly dilemma in the least. We’re still here, suffering and crying out! And now we’re left with a God who can’t do jack about it. Huh.  

So, is it better to have a God who CAN’T or a God who WON’T? Or maybe NO God at all? I wonder if all three of these are essentially the same thing: A glaring and outrageous Absence.  

As always, when I don’t know what to do or think, I turn to the Bible for the sort of ideas I couldn’t come up with on my own. And while I don’t find a neat explanation here, I do find a God who cares and whose heart aches like that of a mother with a child going down the wrong path.  

This heart is on display on the Cross, where the Mother Herself intervenes more directly than ever and bleeds Her way through a final labor of love, saying what we were all thinking all along: “GOD WHERE ARE YOU??????? WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?????”  

A couple days later, our Mother Jesus was showing off His scars to befuddled disciples. What a strange sight for the those who had seen His rigor mortis. Transfixed by the Risen One in front of them, did they see the vast crowd of risen ones standing right behind him, behind the veil? There, in the corner, present in timeless Eternity, are ALL THE OTHERS He had rescued and would still rescue — the crushed, the crucified, the collateral damage. The forgotten and abused. The sinners and the sinned against. Charlie Kirk and Melissa Hortman and the children of Gaza are there. And we are there too, you and I, in our resurrected state. We’re all there. We’re ALL there. And we’re all safe. 

I wonder if, somehow, in that great gathering, it finally all makes sense. 

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Scripture references are from New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.