is God mean?

I have a close friend who's an atheist.

He's fairly private, so for the sake of today's post, we're going to call him something common, something typical, something average, so that he doesn't feel exposed and like I'm shining a giant spotlight on him.

Let's go with Slagathor. (Hi Slagathor!)

Now, Slagathor and I have been friends since we were wee babes (think: 3 years old) so we're comfortable enough to have big discussions (think: what happens after you die?) rather regularly.

Slagathor is an atheist who used to be a Christian, and his loss of faith impacted him profoundly. I think one of the major reasons he walked away from faith and the church is that he couldn't reconcile the God of the OT with the God of the New. More specifically, how can the Jesus we see in the NT be the same God who called Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice, the God who wiped out humanity in a single flood, the God who condones the vicious murder and removal of hundreds of foreskins of men who happened to unlucky enough not to be born Jewish?

Slagathor has other reasons why he feels like Christianity isn't true, but his view of who God is is the primary one, I think. To put the argument really simply: God is mean, and a bully, and psychotic and not worth worshipping even if He's real.

(To my conservative readers: don't judge Slagathor too harshly; he's just as broken and flawed as you or me, but genuinely a good human being. Let's go easy on him, yes?)

The question of "Is God mean?" is not a new one.

Philosophers and anti-theists have been dwelling on this topic for a while. For example, scientist and author Richard Dawkins once said, "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

Brilliant orator Christopher Hitchens says this on the matter of faith: “Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.”

And if you Googled "Is God mean?" like I just did, you'd get 1,280,000,000 results. It's no surprise that most of us have a lot of opinions on God -- like whether He exists, is He kind or cruel, and which god out of all of the world's religions is the RIGHT one?

Many greater minds than mine have attempted to combat this belief of God being a cruel bully. Apologetics isn't my thing, though. I don't feel the need to defend my faith any more than I feel the need to defend what I wear or my favorite flavored coffee creamer.

However, what I will do is share with you examples of God's loving nature, to contrast the spectacular claims of the contrary.

I'm going to do this by looking at God through the lens of Jesus. Because here's the thing: We have a tendency to think of God and Jesus as being two different people, but they're not. (They are... but they're not.) Jesus is God in a human body. Jesus is God in sandals. When we look at Jesus's life, words, and actions, we are looking at God's.

So! Let's look at two spectacularly moving ways God-Incarnate shows us His loving nature:

1. The Woman With the Issue of Blood -- In Luke, we find the story of a woman who had been terribly ill for 12 years. We aren't told exactly what was causing her illness, but we do know she was bleeding continuously. Here's the thing: we know that periods suck, but we don't fully understand or are aware of just how bad they were to endure in the days of Jesus. According to Jewish law, women on their periods were considered impure. They weren't allowed to touch anyone because that would infect them with their impurity. They weren't allowed to go to Temple and make sacrifices. They had to camp out in a tent for a week away from everyone and their homes. During their period, they were outcasts, social pariahs, and were regarded with a certain level of disgust. And this woman -- we don't even know her name! -- had been dealing with this kind of isolation for TWELVE YEARS. She heard that Jesus was passing through, and she allowed herself to hope that maybe this funny man who made such bold statements could heal her. She'd already given everything she had to doctors in hopes that they could cure her, but instead of getting better, we're told she got worse. A crowd is gathering around Jesus as He's pushing His way through her town, and she braves this even though she's not supposed to be there, and crouches down low, and stretches -- reaches her fingertips out as far as they will go -- just to touch the hem of Jesus's robe. Because, she said to herself, "If I can just touch the hem of his garment, then I will be healed." And Friends: She was. Jesus realizing "that power had gone out of Him" demanded to know who had touched Him, which was confusing to all present because they were all jostling about like a crowd at Disney World on Christmas Day. But Jesus knew this poor, outcast woman had touched Him. And He wanted to look her in the eye to tell her that she was healed. But here's the kicker: she was healed not because of who Jesus was, but rather because of her FAITH in who Jesus said He was. Jesus gives her the power, and the responsibility for her healing. In a time when women were comparable to slaves, this impure woman, crouching before the King of Kings, is told, "Your faith has healed you." This is a beautiful story of Jesus connecting with us in our brokenness, and bearing witness to our pains and trials. Our faith never, ever leaves us like it found us. This is a brazen act of love, and it empowers an outcast. It provides her with dignity and makes HER the hero of the story — not Him.

2. Lepers - Jesus's healing of lepers is a story you can find in all three Synoptic Gospels. Like the woman of faith above, this is a story of broken, hurting, and "unclean" people. Leprosy was a big problem back then. (Though there is some debate as to whether those deemed lepers were actually infected with leprosy, or suffering from another skin condition such as psoriasis or eczema.) If you had leprosy, it was believed that you had deserved it -- only those cursed by God were infected. The OT outlines what the people were to do with someone who contracted leprosy: They would have to go before a priest who would inspect any lesions on the skin. After a period of observation, if a person's condition didn't improve, they were regarded as ritually unclean. To be declared unclean meant that you must then tear your clothes, cover your mouth, and scream, "Unclean! Unclean!" before moving to a camp specifically just for lepers. These people were forced to internalize their own unworthiness, separated from their families and friends, insolated, homeless, called unworthy. To touch a leper would break Levitical law, a very serious infraction. After His sermon on the Mount, as Jesus and His disciples began their descent, He was followed by a man infected with the disease. The unnamed leper kneels before Jesus and says with a hoarse voice, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." This poor man took a huge risk approaching Jesus like this. And Jesus does something that's risky, too -- He reaches out and touches the man. A man who probably hadn't experienced human touch in a long time. A man who had been told that he was unclean, filthy, and unworthy. Jesus touches him and says, "Be clean."

In both of these stories, Jesus touches and interacts with the lowly and untouchables. Jesus's acts of healing and love are radical forms of subversion in a time when religious law was strict, and whose implementation was paramount to one's reputation. And in both stories, we see Jesus (God) humanizing the hurting and lowly with compassion, treating them with dignity.

God loves like this. It's a radical, I-don't-care-who-you-are kind of love. A love that looks us in the eye and asserts that we ARE worthy of dignity. A love that sees us as souls, not just bodies. It's a love that invites us to step into healing, healing from the names we've been called, or have learned to call ourselves. You may not be suffering with a physical ailment, but Reader I am sure you are suffering or have suffered mentally or emotionally. Jesus heals our wounds by witnessing them, and loving us back.

I may not have all of the theological answers, but when I look at how Jesus loved -- camping, laughing, dining, healing, hugging, and resting with those he travelled with and met -- I am reminded that I don't have to a grand rebuttal to the claim that God is mean.

Because the truth is this: The one thing I know with absolute certainty is that God is love. And His love sees me for me, past the façade and the brokenness and the pain. He empowers me to be the most whole version of me I can be. He calls me out of deep waters, and challenges me to offer love, respect, and dignity to others too even if (ESPECIALLY if?) they don’t deserve it.

I guess there is something kind of crazy about that, after all.