in which God commands him, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering” (Gen. 22:2). One might think that Evans writes to lament the weakness of her faith compared to Abraham’s. Instead, she celebrates the superiority of her refusal to do what Abraham did, since from her moral perch God is wrong and disobedience to him is right.

She summarizes:

“This is a hard God to root for. It’s a hard God to defend against all my doubts and all the challenges posed by science, reason, experience, and intuition. I once heard someone say he became an atheist for theological reasons, and that makes sense to me. Once you are convinced that the deity you were taught to worship does evil things, it’s easier to question the deity’s very existence than it is to set aside your moral objections and worship anyway.”

There are some obvious questions to ask Mrs. Evans. The first is where she derives her moral objections to the actions of God. She later states that her stance comes from “being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ,” as if Jesus had some objection to the God of the Bible. What Jesus is she referring to? Is he a Jesus of her own projection or the Jesus of Scripture? Since Evans, in the same article, denounces the idea of Old Testament holy war and the New Testament doctrine of hell, does she accept or reject the Jesus of Revelation 19:11, who sits on a white horse “and in righteousness he judges and makes war”? Is this her Jesus, or does she decide who Jesus is, just as she decides what God is allowed to do?

Speaking of Scripture, we ask a second question. What does it mean to be a Christian who responds to the Bible with antipathy and condescension? Jesus declared, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life” (Jn. 5:24). According to Jesus, faith in him is faith in his Word. Is not his Word revealed in Scripture? Jesus said his followers must believe “him who sent me,” i.e. the God of the Old Testament, who Evans purports to revile and reject. Is Evans’ Christianity something different than what Jesus described? I say this not to attack Mrs. Evans, who I do not know, but to express concern for what seem to be the inevitable implications of her declarations. Is she not abandoning what the biblical Jesus describes as Christianity for a different religion based on “science, reason, experience, and intuition”? As I read Evans, and her apparent hermeneutical mentor, my old professor Peter Enns, they are not at all charting new territory of spiritual authenticity but serving up old-fashioned unbelieving liberalism, which according to J. Gresham Machen is simply a different religion from biblical Christianity.

Having asked some questions regarding Rachel Held Evans’ view of God, let me take my own stab at this subject. For I pray that I would pass Abraham’s test and I applaud Abraham for doing so. Evans states that while she is not yet a mother, she knows “deep in my gut” she would sooner turn her back on God and be struck dead than obey such a command. Writing as the father of five dearly beloved children, I counter that Abraham was right to obey and I would hope to do likewise in his place. Why was Abraham right? Let me briefly offer four perspectives and reasons: Continue reading →