God is Love - I'm Confused

I've often joked that I grew up believing that the message of the Christian Gospel was something like: 'Jesus died on the cross to pay the price of your sins, so the Father has to let you into heaven but he's really pissed off about it because he hates you.'

I didn't grow up in the UK and I didn't grow up a Methodist, so I frequently get told that my experience is due to having grown up in a strict denomination in the United States and that this experience is pretty much unique to me.

Then, as I reread Steve Chalke's The Lost Message of Jesus, he writes (in 2004, so not in The Dark Ages):

...in the popular mind, this is exactly who the God of the Bible is: a sadistic monster, a powerful and spiteful punisher of people who are having a tough enough time on earth as it is...Most people today, if they believe in God at all, think that he is power and that power is all about the domination of others. (p. 47)

So what, exactly is the deal? Does 'everyone' believe that God loves them? Are Chalke and I (and Gerard Hughes, for that matter - thinking of his 'Uncle George') all wet? My conversion came when I began to believe that God loves me; is it really the case that few people need to hear this message?

It's Funny...

It's funny how trends can start with just a remark.

I've just started rereading Steve Chalke's The Lost Message of Jesus. I actually read it when it first came out in 2004 but I gave my copy to a friend and I needed to get my hands on the book again.

The reason that I needed to get my hands on it again is because I'm working on a paper about theologies of atonement.

Anyway what's 'funny' about Chalke's book is that in 2004 it opened a whole can of worms in the UK on the subject of 'the correct theory of atonement'. But, as I break open the cover again for the second time, I'm reminded that the book really isn't primarily about atonement theory at all. I'm not actually certain what it is, perhaps actually a follow-on to Dave Tomlinson's Post Evangelical.

Certainly, Chalke's book is a plea to recover the teachings of Jesus as central and important to what it means to be a Christian. I also think that Chalke's book is what is now the recognisable post-evangelical plea for church communities to be safe places to struggle with faith-issues. Something that, in my experience, is not possible in church communities that take a hard line on any doctrinal issue, be it penal substitutionary atonement, resurrection or 6-day twenty-four hour creation.

Anyway, I've just cracked open the book again for the second time, so more later.