When Theologians Mock the God of the Bible, Where Will the Comedians Be Found?

Comedian Bill Maher’s mocking of the God of the Bible is only a reflection of what is happening in churches in these end times which are so perfectly described in Bible prophecy. In 1944, Methodist bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, one of the first presidents of the World Council of Churches, endorsed calling the God of the Old Testament “a dirty bully.” Oxnam wrote: “Hugh Walpole, in Wintersmoore, tells of a father and son at Church. The aged rector read from the Old Testament, and the boy learned of the terrible God who sent plagues upon the people and created fiery serpents to assault them. That night, when the father passed the boy’s bedroom, the boy called him, put his arms around his father’s neck, and, drawing him close, said, ‘Father, you hate Jehovah. So do I. I loathe Him, dirty bully!’ We have long since rejected a conception of reconciliation associated historically with an ideal of Deity that is loathsome. God, for us, cannot be thought of an angry, awful, avenging Being who because of Adam’s sin must have his Shylockian pound of flesh. No wonder the honest boy in justifiable repugnance could say, ‘Dirty Bully’” (Preaching in a Revolutionary Age, p. 79). More recently, William Young, author of the very popular book The Shack, says that “the God who “watches from a distance and judges sin” is “a Christianized version of Zeus.” In his popular book Love Wins, Rob Bell, former pastor of a megachurch, calls the preaching of hell a “cheap view of God.” He says there is something wrong with this God and calls Him “terrifying and traumatizing and unbearable.” He says that if an earthly father acted like the God who sends people to hell “we could contact child protection services immediately.”

(Friday Church News Notes, March 28, 2014, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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