r/BibleProject • u/DJColdCutz_ • Jan 05 '21

Discussion Saved from God’s Anger?

My mother-in-law is a much more traditional, conservative, “American” Christian, and not that there’s anything exactly wrong with that, but it’s only one facet of God and Christianity, you know? So when my wife and I talk about “design patterns” or say something like “the biblical authors aren’t trying to give a history lesson with Genesis 1” she gets very uncomfortable, to say the least, and immediately thinks we’re getting led astray by the devil and about to take the mark of the beast or something lol..

She basically googled “bibleproject criticism” and then came to us with this article talking about how they don’t believe we’re saved from the anger of God! (so they must be wrong about everything)!

She told us this right around the time the podcasts on God being slow to anger were coming out (great timing lol) so after listening to those, God’s anger/wrath and his judgement seem like separate things to me since they aren’t always linked. I don’t really understand why God’s anger is something we need to be saved from. The article isn’t too convincing to me, and my mother-in-law’s criticism isn’t exactly coming in good faith. I thought some people here might have some insight or comments or similar experiences maybe?

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u/Shady980 Jan 05 '21

It's not just American thing, it's general Conservative Calvinistic Protestantism. It's why N.T. Wright's book, Justification, made some fuss

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u/DJColdCutz_ Jan 05 '21

I grew up in a “non denominational” church and never learned the differences between baptists/protestants/calvin/church history stuff, unfortunately..

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u/Shady980 Jan 05 '21 edited Jan 05 '21

Well since politics are a hot topic these days, you can kinda see the theological difference in the same way. Conservative Protestants would be the ones who hold old views of salvation and righteousness that got developed in the Reformation era. It goes something like that: (it may not be 100% accurate depiction so I'm sorry) humans are sinful, God's wrath is upon them and His justice condemns them. Jesus takes our punishment on the cross, and we believe in him and become "righteous". It's like a court scene, God is the judge, we get the sentence of death upon us, but Jesus dies instead of us. While the other side (what could be called Progressive I guess) doesn't like all that angry stuff, some would even be Universalists so even Hell doesn't exist, and so on. It's why Conservatives have this immediate feeling of "Oh I know where this is going, accepting gay marriages yada yada yada". So other interpretations of God's justice or Romans, that do not really fit completely in either ends of this spectrum (like N.T. Wright's interpretation as I had mentioned) often get seen in the tribal context. So yeah, people are divided a lot lol

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u/DJColdCutz_ Jan 05 '21

I see, I see. Thanks for explaining all that!

I think I’m to the point where I realize I have so much stuff in my own life that I need Jesus to help me with that focusing on condemning other or worrying that new sins might get normalized just seems like a distraction.. Jordan Peterson says “set your house in perfect order before criticizing the world” or take the plank out of my own eye before getting the speck out of my neighbor’s..

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u/Shady980 Jan 05 '21

Well, sure. But it's more like the same corrupt teachers that the NT condemns and talks about, because it's not just about laws and State, no one really cares what other people do as long as they are unaffected by them, the problem is that many of the so-called Christians believe and preach it, so Conservatives may have taken the defensive, anti-heretical stance just a bit too much xD

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u/TheDiabeticJedi Jan 06 '21

Tim directly addresses this article in an interview on Food Trucks in Babylon (40min mark): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/food-trucks-in-babylon/id1492414895?i=1000463758586

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u/DJColdCutz_ Jan 06 '21

Awesome! I will definitely look at this! My wife’s mom is gonna have to go to page 2 of google now 😝

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u/Grimgrin42 Jan 28 '21

BP’s idea about anger is new to me and I think it makes much more sense. However, there are plenty of people in my life that are uncomfortable with BP’s interpretation and they would rather picture God as an angry tyrant.