If God Is Love

Rediscovering Grace in an Ungracious World

Philip Gulley, James Mulholland

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780060816155
• eBook ISBN: 9780061745867
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

In a straightforward and thoughtful exploration, Pastors Philip Gulley and James Mulholland attempt to answer one question: If we took God's love seriously, what would our world look like? If God is Love addresses issues the church won't face, calling us to restore grace as the center of the Christian life.

Gulley and Mulholland argue that what we believe dramatically affects the way we live and interact in the world. The belief in a literal hell where people suffer eternally has often been used by the Church to justify hate and violence, which contradicts what Jesus taught about love and grace. The authors present a new vision for our personal, religious, and corporate lives, exploring what our world would be like if we based our existence on the essential truth that God loves every person.

Philip Gulley is a Quaker minister, writer, husband, and father. He is the bestselling author of Front Porch Tales and the acclaimed Harmony series, as well as If Grace Is True, coauthored with James Mulholland. He and his wife, Joan, live in Indiana with their sons, Spencer and Sam.

James Mulholland, the author of Praying Like Jesus, is a theologian with ecumenical experience in the American Baptist and United Methodist denominations. He presently pastors a Quaker meeting. He lives in Indianapolis where he is involved in a wide variety of social ministries.

"The process of reading If God Is Love is itself an experience of healing and reconciliation. This book is a welcome antidote to so much contemporary religion that is coercive, intolerant, and finally unbearable."

- Walter Brueggemann, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary

1

Why Beliefs Matter

When I was younger, I thought beliefs were a private matter. I had the right to believe what I believed, and others could believe what they wanted. As long as people didn’t force their beliefs on me, I was happy to allow them to think things I considered ridiculous. Beliefs weren’t dangerous. It was attitudes and actions that caused harm.

In the summer of 1986, I discovered this was a naive belief. That June I was hired to pastor a small rural congregation. I’d been studying theology in college and was eager to put my newfound knowledge to work. That church allowed me to preach, visit the sick, and learn why the world won’t be saved by a committee. They also taught me why beliefs matter.

My first couple of months with them went well. It was the proverbial honeymoon—we each proclaimed our fondness for the other loudly and often. There was, on both our parts, some give and take. They preferred their hymns aged like a fine wine, and so I didn’t suggest they clap their hands, buy a drum set, or sing lyrics projected on a screen. They discovered I was soft-spoken and bought a new microphone rather than insist I shout. We thought any other differences were minor and easily resolved. In the third month, we found we were wrong.

I can’t remember my exact words, but something I mentioned in a sermon caused an elderly woman in the church to wonder whether I believed in Satan and hell. She approached me after worship and began questioning me. Lacking a well-honed ministerial radar and eager to prove my theological sophistication, I answered her questions directly and honestly. This was before I learned that answering theological questions directly and honestly is generally a bad idea, and that ministers go to seminary precisely so we can master the theological language necessary to bewilder people when pressed to provide answers they might not like.

I told her I didn’t believe in Satan. Nor did I believe in a place where people were endlessly tormented. I then told her she was perfectly free to believe those ideas. I patted her hand and turned to speak to someone else, never realizing she and I differed on far more than Satan and hell. I believed then, and I believe now, that faith is a matter of inward conviction, not outward compulsion. She believed strict conformity was a requirement of faith. If I’d known this, I might have noticed the whispers during the pitch-in dinner after worship. Instead, my wife and I left church that day grateful God had called us to such a warm fellowship, unaware I’d soon feel its heat.

That week I immersed myself in my studies and sermon preparation and the next Sunday morning arrived at church brimming with excitement. It was Palm Sunday. I planned to speak on how quickly the crowd went from cheering Jesus to jeering him. It turned out to be a timely sermon.

The head elder approached me as I entered the church. “We’re not holding church this morning,” he said. “We’d like to meet with you instead.”

A minister with a sermon in his pocket being an unstoppable force of nature, I told him we should worship before meeting to talk. This also gave me time to figure out what I’d done. I quickly eliminated all the usual pastoral indiscretions. I hadn’t had an affair with the church secretary. We didn’t have one. I hadn’t visited the local tavern. I couldn’t afford to drink on what they were paying me. I hadn’t used church stamps for personal correspondence. I had no idea why they wanted to speak with me, but suspected anything that would cause them to cancel worship on Palm Sunday must be serious.

The head elder reluctantly agreed to postpone our meeting until after worship. When the last hymn was sung and the closing prayer offered, I filed downstairs with him and sat at a folding table in the church basement. The elders were grim-faced.

“This is an awkward matter,” the head elder said, “but I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go.”

I asked if I had done something wrong.

“There have been concerns raised that you don’t believe in Satan and hell,” he said.

“That’s right,” I said. Then, eager to display my theological prowess, I asked if they wanted to know why.

They declined my offer to enlighten them.

I began to panic. The job didn’t pay much, but I was concerned that being fired after only three months might not look good on my résumé. “I do believe in the love of God. Isn’t that enough?”

It wasn’t.

I realize now what I didn’t understand then—beliefs matter. Beliefs are not harmless. They have the power to shape our world, for good or ill. Some beliefs unite us in a great and common good, while others divide us, reinforcing prejudices and diminishing our humanity. Religious beliefs are especially potent, shaping how we think of and act toward God, others, and ourselves.

I’d thought the idea of Satan and hell negotiable. They didn’t. They considered a belief in a demonic personality and eternal damnation essential. They thought those who didn’t believe in hell were deceived by Satan and destined for the lake of fire. Fearing I’d lead them astray, they fired me, giving me fresh insight into the origins of that expression.

After the meeting, I walked out to the car where my wife was waiting.

“What happened?” she asked.

“It’s good news.”

“What is it?”

“We get to sleep in next Sunday.”

We drove home and ate dinner, then I lay down on the couch to take a nap. The phone rang later that afternoon. It was an elder from another small rural church near our home.

“We’d like you to come be our pastor,” he said. “Are you available?”

“As a matter of fact I am,” I told him.

I preached at that church the next Sunday. I wasn’t optimistic about my prospects, figuring my tenure would be brief once they found out what I believed. So I preached about God’s love for homosexuals, thinking it would shock them and they’d look elsewhere for a pastor.

After worship, I went downstairs to meet with the elders, a maddeningly familiar process by now.

“Do you believe in Satan and hell?” an older woman asked.

You’d think I’d have learned my lesson and offered some theologically obscure response, but I was still oblivious to why this question mattered. I assumed that someone at the first church had called to warn them of my heretical views. More stubborn than intelligent, I answered honestly once again.

“No, I don’t.”

An elderly gentleman smacked the table with his hand. “I like a man who speaks his mind,” he said. “Let’s hire him.”

And so they did. I was there four years before leaving to pastor a church in the city. When I left, it was with a heavy heart. And from what I could tell they were sad to see me go. What made the difference?

Grace.

The Meaning of Grace

I believe in grace.

Now by grace, I don’t mean a wishy-washy, whatever-goes approach in which one belief is as good as another. I don’t mean an attitude that ignores differences and tolerates every idea. Critics are right to label such thinking as lazy and indulgent. What I mean by grace is a commitment to the most difficult and demanding of human acts—engaging and loving those who think and behave in ways we find unacceptable.

Grace is the unfailing commitment to love all persons, regardless of their beliefs.

Only grace makes it possible for those who believe differently to respect and relate to one another. Grace allows us to disagree, to challenge the damaging beliefs of others even as we are challenged, and to do this without violating the autonomy and dignity of others. Grace empowers us to embrace deeply divergent convictions even as we embrace one another. We love one another as God loves us—graciously.

Love and grace are not synonymous. Nearly everyone believes God is loving, but there is considerable debate over the width, length, height, and depth of this love. For many, God’s love is limited and conditional, offered to some and not others. They believe God’s love is reserved for the elect and bestowed on the obedient. God’s love becomes a reward, not a divine commitment.

Grace, in contrast, is not connected to our behavior. “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:5, NIV). Grace is God’s commitment to love us regardless.

This kind of love echoes throughout history in the words and lives of many religious leaders. It was the kind of love Jesus modeled and taught. It was a love offered to the outcast, sinners, and the unloved. It was a love for both neighbor and enemy.

Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34–35). What was new was not the command to love—the Hebrew Scriptures were full of such commands—but the command to love as Jesus did—expansively.

This grace allowed those in my second church to survive the fumblings of a young man who knew he didn’t believe in Satan and hell, but knew little about being a pastor. They gave me the time and space to move beyond quick and easy responses to difficult questions and develop my convictions.

Eventually, I realized the importance of Satan and hell. They represent a popular and long-standing answer to the question of human destiny—some will be saved and others will be damned. The fact that I didn’t believe this suggested I’d accepted a different answer. Ironically, I rejected Satan and hell before I was able to articulate a more optimistic response to the question of human destiny. Only over time did I discover why I thought believing in Satan and hell unhelpful, even harmful.

When that elderly woman asked me whether I believed in Satan or hell, I brushed aside her question as trivial. When that church fired me, I thought its members were petty and intolerant. It took four years of seminary, many years of pastoring, and countless experiences with God and others before I understood how important her question was. She was asking, though neither of us realized it, how I interpreted Scripture, how I understood the character of God, and what I thought of Jesus. Most important, she was asking me to define the boundaries of God’s love.

I regret my flippant response. Only now do I understand why my rejection of Satan and hell was so threatening. She feared that, in removing one card, the whole house might tumble. She was right.

I’ve spent the past twenty years picking up the cards. Only in the past few years have I put my beliefs in some kind of order. I have given her question the attention it deserved and can finally give a thoughtful answer to why I don’t believe in Satan or hell: I don’t believe there are boundaries to God’s love. I believe God will save every person.

Now by save, I mean much more than a ticket to heaven. I mean much more than being cleansed of our sins and rescued from hell’s fire. I mean even more than being raised from the grave and granted eternal life. By salvation, I mean being freed of every obstacle to intimacy with God. We will know as we are known and love as we are loved.

Salvation is not about what happens after we die, but what begins whenever we realize God loves us.

Although I’d argue there is room for such a belief in the tradition of the Church, the interpretation of Scripture, and any reasonable discourse, I have to admit my belief is based primarily on my experience with God. The God I’ve experienced loves me in ways I cannot fully comprehend or express.

I’d like to think God loves me because of my sterling character and pleasant demeanor, but when I suggest this possibility, my wife’s uncontrollable laughter quickly deflates such delusions. It seems much more likely that God loves every person as much as God loves me.

I believe God is love and that everything God does, God does because of love. When this love is poured on the wicked, the rebellious, and the resistant—adjectives that fit all of us on occasion—we call it grace. Where sin abounds, God’s grace increases all the more. Unwilling to abandon us, God works in the lives of every person to redeem and restore. The restoration of all things is God’s ultimate desire.

This universal salvation is not an event, but a process. It is God’s primary action in the world. Jesus came to proclaim this good news, to draw people to God. He broke down the barriers he encountered and refused to limit God’s favor to a chosen few. The cross was the political and religious response to such radical grace. The resurrection was God’s unwillingness to allow a human government or religion to have the final word.

I believe God will accomplish the salvation of every person, in this life or the next, no matter how long we resist.

If Satan does exist, he will one day repent, be forgiven, and take his proper place in the divine order. If hell exists, it won’t be the final destination for anyone. It will merely be another tool in God’s work to purify and redeem. Years ago, I abandoned the concepts of Satan and hell as unsophisticated. Now I reject them for a far more important reason: they represent a way of understanding God I no longer find credible.

I suspect this answer wouldn’t have satisfied that elderly woman in my first church. It wouldn’t have kept me from being fired. It continues to cause me considerable trouble. I’ve learned that many individuals and human institutions still oppose such liberal grace. Many religious people regard such theology as heresy. Others, having given up on religion, consider such beliefs irrelevant. I think both positions are wrong. I think believing in God’s universal salvation can change the world.

Believing in the universal love of God has changed my world. It has changed how I talk about God. It has transformed my self-image. It has altered my attitudes and actions. It has helped me see how much damage my old way of thinking did to me and to others.

I believe much of the pain and suffering in our world is a direct consequence of a persistent belief in dual destiny—the idea that some are destined for heaven and the rest for hell. This idea led to many childhood fears and insecurities. I grew up believing I was unworthy of God’s love and obsessed with earning God’s favor. Shame and guilt plagued me into my early adult years.

After I became certain of my salvation, I applied the same harsh standards to others. Hell and damnation allowed me to judge and condemn those different from me. They were wicked, and I was good. If challenged, I’d admit judgment was ultimately in God’s hands, but I was more than willing to offer and act upon an early prediction. My smugness often did damage to those around me, but far more frightening are the ramifications when millions share this arrogance.

Charles Kimball, in his book When Religion Becomes Evil, writes, “Many religious people see religion as the problem. By religion, they invariably mean other people’s false religion. A substantial number of Christians, for example, embrace some form of exclusivism that says, ‘My understanding and experience of Jesus is the only way to God. Any other form of human religious understanding or behavior is nothing more than a vain attempt by sinful people on a fast track to hell.’”¹

Unfortunately, Christianity is not alone in this religious conceit. Muslims ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• A Note from the Authors
• 1: Why Beliefs Matter
• 2: Embracing Grace
• 3: Being Gracious
• 4: Living Graciously
• 5: Gracious Religion
• 6: Gracious Christianity
• 7: The Politics of Grace
• 8: Money and Grace
• 9: Gracious Justice
• 10: A Gracious World
• About the Authors
• Copyright
• About the Publisher