The dispute over dropping a beloved Christian song from a new Presbyterian hymnal has widened into a multi-denominational tussle, with Baptists joining the fray.
At issue are various Christian doctrines of the atonement, which attempt to explain why Jesus died and whether his death satisfies God’s wrath over humankind’s sinfulness. But some Christians warn that emphasizing these doctrines may have the unintended consequence of turning God into an angry deity who had to be appeased by shedding Jesus’ blood.
That’s the view taken by the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song. The committee removed the hymn “In Christ Alone” from the new Presbyterian Church (USA) hymnal after the song’s co-authors, Stuart Townend and Keith Getty, refused to change a line about God’s wrath being satisfied.
Bob Terry, editor of The Alabama Baptist newspaper, stepped into a theological landmine when he wrote an editorial saying Presbyterians got it right. Terry said he believes Jesus’ death paid the price for sin. But the song’s lyrics went too far.
“Sometimes Christians carelessly make God out to be some kind of ogre whose angry wrath overflowed until the innocent Jesus suffered enough to calm Him down,” Terry wrote.
That editorial, which ran earlier this month, touched a nerve.
In blogs, tweets, letters to the editor and phone calls, angry Baptist readers accused Terry of being theologically liberal and abandoning the Bible. Some wanted him fired.
In an unusual move, the president of the Alabama Baptist State Convention and the executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions issued a statement that criticized the editorial.
“As Alabama Baptists seek to be true to Scripture, we affirm the essential and historic Christian doctrine of substitutionary atonement,” they wrote, referring to the doctrine that Jesus died as a substitute for humankind.
The fact that a Baptist newspaper editor sided with the Presbyterians made things worse, said the Rev. John Thweatt, pastor of First Baptist Church in Pell City, Ala.
Conservative Baptists have long viewed mainline denominations like the PCUSA with suspicion, accusing them of abandoning Christian beliefs. Siding with them was a bad move for Terry, he said.
“He opened up a Pandora’s box,” Thweatt said. “I don’t think he thought things through.”
Thweatt is a fan of the song “In Christ Alone.” He said he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to change it.
The song’s original lyrics say that as Jesus died on the cross, “the wrath of God was satisfied.” The Presbyterian committee wanted to change that to “the love of God was magnified.”
“To remove that line would gut the gospel,” Thweatt said.
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., agreed.
Mohler said there is no contradiction between God’s love and God’s wrath. Both are needed to deal with human sin.
That’s why he believes penal substitutionary atonement is essential. Critics who want to change “In Christ Alone” to remove the line about God’s wrath have bad theology, Mohler said.
“It reveals deeper problems with what they believe about atonement,” he said.
Mohler also gave some context on why penal substitutionary atonement matters to Southern Baptists. It was one of the issues that led to the conservative resurgence — or fundamentalist takeover — among Southern Baptists in the 1980s and 1990s, when some seminary professors began criticizing substitutionary atonement, leading to full-blown questions about biblical inerrancy.
Memories from that conflict are still fresh, he said.
But Jay Phelan, senior professor of theological studies at North Park University, said too much wrath also leads to bad theology.
Phelan said Mohler and other critics are motivated by church politics as well as theology. They’re part of the movement known as neo-Calvinism, which stresses God’s anger over sin.
“You have all the neo-Calvinists who see any move away from strict satisfaction theory as the straight road to liberal hell,” he said.
Phelan said the neo-Calvinist view of Jesus’ death is too limited.
Most Christians believe in substitutionary atonement. But Christians have differing views on how Jesus’ death forgave sinners, said the Rev. Morgan Guyton, a blogger and associate pastor of Burke United Methodist Church in Burke, Va.
Among them are the ransom theory, which holds that Jesus’ death was taken to be a ransom paid to the devil to liberate human sinners from bondage.
No one theory can explain the atonement, Morgan said. And too much focus on wrath causes problems with the Trinity by making it appear God crucified Jesus.
Mohler argues that critics of substitutionary atonement forget God is always motivated by love, even in punishing sin.
The word “wrath” does not appear in another popular song written by Townend about the cross, titled, “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us.”
Written in 1995, that song remains one of the top 50 popular songs in churches, according to the Christian Copyright Licensing International. Its last verse claims the details of the atonement remain a mystery.
“Why should I gain from His reward?” it says. “I cannot give an answer. But this I know with all my heart, His wounds have paid my ransom.”
Jesus laid down his life for the Scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Romans, the Israelites, and the foreigners. In doing so he proclaimed more emphatically than anything else, “love one another.” Obviously, we still are not listening any better than they did.
This is why I’m an Atheist: Look at how much conflict arises over disputes over who and what God is. God is the name of a character in a story. Whether or not that story is true is uncertain, but what is clear is that the story itself has brought no end of conflict.
Why? Because so many believers try to use the story as a source for certainty in their lives. I’ll take uncertainty, thank you very much!
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
–Oliver Cromwell
The Holy Spirit spoke through Jude to true believers to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Obeying that command is the right thing to do, atheists not withstanding. Nothing spiritual will ultimately please the unbeliever so quit trying. It is our privilege and duty to please the One who created heaven and earth and also died for us so we could have LIFE. Praise to the King of Kings!
David. THAT is a good example of a story that you tell yourself. How old were you when you decided to believe this story? How does that story shape your decisions about what is and isn’t true? What if your story is untrue? What would it cost you to question this story?
I find all these questions much more interesting than the actual content of the story. After all, EVERYONE has a story. Still I would assert that it is the certainty with which people hold these stories to be true that leads to conflict much more than the content of the story.
“Nothing spiritual will ultimately please the unbeliever so quit trying.”
You don’t know me sir.
Paul, not trying to single you out personally, but the truth about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for sinners is loathsome to the natural man. He wants to believe either that there is no God, so the revelation is a farce, or that if there is a God he is good enough to earn his way in. Jesus said His Way is the narrow way and only few will find it. Only those willing to accept the truth about their own personal sin will come to Christ for salvation, which is by grace through faith in Him alone.
This is yet another story. I do not believe it is true. But I’m open to persuasion. Please tell me why you believe it’s true.
Paul, that is a long story that would take hours to cover, but what I believe about Jesus Christ comes from the Bible alone. I’m convinced that it is God’s revealed truth, that He inspired so that we wouldn’t have to be tossed here and there by everyone’s newest idea or vain philosophy. It’s what I referred to earlier as the faith, once for all delivered to the saints. Most who argue the loudest against scripture have read it the least. But more than that, belief in the gospel, the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ for all who would believe in Him, and the eternal life He would bestow to all those who will believe, is more of a heart issue than an intellectual issue.
That’s in no way saying check your mind at the door please. I am 58 years old, so not a youngster by any means. I’ve had a wide variety of life experiences some in unbelief but more in belief. The studies I’ve undertaken after giving my life to Christ have continued to build more and more faith and trust in Him and in the message delivered in the Bible. I have studied other religions enough, and examined other philosophies to the extent that I reject all others in favor of the only message that gives real life, real hope and a future that is as sure as I’m breathing God’s air right now.
Faith is in Jesus Christ, not in a set of rules or even the scriptures, but the scriptures reveal who Jesus really is so we can believe in Him. It’s not just another story, because who the revelation is about (Jesus Christ) and what we believe about Him, and what we do as a result of that belief changes our eternal destiny. I have experienced life in Jesus Christ, and all the other evidence, of which there are volumes, merely continues to strengthen the faith I already have. I could say much more but space and time limit the extent to which I can answer this.
Fair enough. Thanks for sharing.
Geez Dennis, why do I keep calling you David? Duh!
No problem Paul, thanks for the exchange.