Lent 4: Rejecting Both a Violent God and Cheap Grace
Scripture reading: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
I’ve been to a lot of different types of churches in my life that have run the gamut from Fundamentalist to the only slightly less conservative Evangelical, to Moderate and Progressive. And the parable of the prodigal son is a favorite across the board. Even in congregations that don’t follow a lectionary or scheduled list of readings, this is one of the parables preached about again and again. It is a beautiful story.
It illuminates a beautiful truth about the God Jesus preaches: a God that loves us unabashedly and unconditionally. Whose love knows no bounds. the story is beautiful. The God portrayed is inspiring. And Christians across the theological spectrum have missed the point and have preached a God whose love and forgiveness are tinged with the threat of violence or they have used the parable to preach cheap grace. Both present troubling images of God
God forgives but only if you do x,y,z, others God condemns you.
During my Pentecostal days, this story was preached often in conjugation with other verses that talked about God’s incoming judgment. The purpose was to present a sort of carrot and stick approach in order to convince people to turn to Christ. The parable was meant to portray a loving God-one who patiently waits for us to return and when we do is thrilled. This God lavishes us with undeserved affection and celebrates our return.
This parable is the carrot meant to stir people’s hearts to the God who loves all. But this story was quickly followed by other verses-take your pick-that portrayed God’s upcoming judgment. Right now, God may be acting like the loving and forgiving father but if we died before we repented and accepted Jesus into our heart, then we would spend an eternity burning in hell.
Or if Jesus came back and raptured all the “good” Christians and you were left behind, well you would still have one more chance to repent-but you would be in for years of pain and suffering on earth. And if even after all that time you still hadn’t repented and accepted Jesus Christ as savior, you would be thrown into the lake of fire with the devil and demons.
The parable of the prodigal son instead of a proclamation of a doting Father was a warning. I’m not particularly surprised about this parable being tied to hell and condemnation. The god of many fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians is a god who loves with conditions. There is always a hint of violence behind this god’s love. “Yeah, accept Jesus into your heart and also believe the Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God, dress a certain way, reject science, condemn other faiths and even other Christian denominations to hell, bully members of the LGBTQ+, and you *might* go to heaven.
The god of evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity is less a loving father and more an abusive, unpredictable father and we are the frightened children, unsure of which version of our father we will get today and being told over and over again that we are unworthy of love but God loves us anyway.
And when you dare push back against this theology-when you say, “actually, I believe God’s love encompasses all people and no, they don’t need to convert to Christianity or a specific version to experience God’s love and forgiveness.”
Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christians often act like the son in the story who never left. “No, God can’t forgive everyone. Not after I’ve done all the ‘right’ things.” The idea that God’s love could be so encompassing and wide-reaching, is portrayed as unjust and unfair. Especially after all the work they have done to “obey” God. They preach a God whose love is quite limited.
The God of cheap grace
Understandably, those on the more moderate and progressive end of the spectrum, completely reject that dual understanding of God. God can’t be loving and still arbitrarily send millions of people to suffer for an indeterminate amount of time. I agree, however, my problem with, moderate and progressive readings of the Prodigal son and their understanding of forgiveness is that they tend to promote not only cheap forgiveness but often weaponize the story against marginalized communities.
For instance, Progressives and moderates tend to gloss over the repentance aspect of the story. The prodigal son makes the conscious decision to return. Now, my understanding of repentance differs significantly from Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christian definitions of repentance. I define repentance as rejecting Empire and its oppressive values and systems.
I’ll be honest, I give zero fucks about whether people curse or not unless they are directing it at other people to dehumanize them. In those cases, the word isn’t necessarily the problem, it’s the using it to harm other people. (Ie the difference between telling God, “what the fuck?” Or complaining: “this math problem is a bitch” and telling someone, “shut the fuck up. You are a bitch.”
I don’t care if someone is having premarital sex as long as it involves adults who can consent. If someone is living together and having sex before marriage, ok. No need to repent for that.
But what we need to repent of both individually and communally is our acceptance and furthering of the violence of empire. We need to repent and destroy the very systems of violence that give space to sexual assault, domestic violence, war, racism and white supremacy, bullying, homophobia, transphobia, poverty, etc.
In too many moderate and progressive spaces, the need for repentance is erased. And the idea of unconditional forgiveness is weaponized to silence those from marginalized communities. White Moderate and Progressive leaders will preach about the need to love police officers right after a police officer has shot another Black and brown person in the back.
And when Black and brown people point out that white people not impacted by police violence, have no right to demand that those who are, forgive their oppressors, especially without repentance, white Progressives and Moderates have the audacity to portray Black and brown people as the other son in the prodigal story.
Or when Progressive and moderates try to force Queer people to hold space with those who want to see them forcibly placed back in the closet, their rights eliminated, and their lives in danger. “You need to forgive those who believe who you are is an abomination to God. God says to forgive. Look, God forgives.”
A story about God’s expansive forgiveness is twisted into a story meant to shame those from marginalized communities to forgive their oppressors with no expectation of repentance or that those doing the harm, you know stop. That’s not a “radical” reading of the prodigal son, that’s simply using the text to commit violence against the vulnerable.
Multiple things can be true at once: you can hold onto the idea of a God whose love and forgiveness have no limits and also not use God’s characteristics as a way to guilt-trip those from disenfranchised groups into remaining silent or demanding better.
You can describe God’s limitless love and forgiveness and not tell people from marginalized groups they need to “forgive their enemies” and move on. You can also critique Fundamentalist and Evangelical notions of repentance without disregarding the need for repentance in general.
The story of the prodigal son provides a moving metaphor that captures who God is: a loving father whose love and forgiveness knows no bounds. Let’s not ruin it by portraying a God whose love is tinged with violence and threats of hellfire. Let’s also not weaponize this story against people within vulnerable communities by telling them they need to forgive their oppressors without expecting repentance or change.
