Abstract
Cruel God, Kind God: How Images of God Shape Belief, Attitude, and Outlook
Zenon Lotufo Jr.
Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2012. 185 pp. $37.00
In an essay titled, “Religious Metaphors Can Kill,” J. Harold Ellens asks, “Is it possible that we have, fixed in our individual or collective unconscious, a metaphor that contradicts our conscious commitment to the decency of statesmanship, to the advantages of negotiated and conflict resolution, and to the redemptive ethic of grace?” (The Destructive Power of Religion, vol. 1, Praeger, 2004, 47). According to Ellens, a well-published scholar working at the intersection of theology and psychology, the answer is a definitive yes. He argues that theological claims about God—especially metaphors about God’s wrath—strongly shape the worldview and actions of those who follow this God.
Cruel God, Kind God opens by informing the reader that its goal is to further Ellens’s argument. Zenon Lotufo Jr., a Presbyterian scholar, minister, and psychotherapist from Sao Paulo, Brazil, investigates how the doctrine of penal substitution encourages violence on the part of those who adhere to it. The point of such a project, according to the publisher’s website, is to help Christians “who are struggling with cruel-God images to seek alternative images upon which to base their faith.”
It is in his treatment of certain views and practices of conservative Christians—his target audience—where the distinctive contribution of Lotufo’s project is most visible. In his chapter “Creating a Vengeful God,” Lotufo explores the theological rationale used by conservative Christian writers for punishing disobedient children: that it is God’s idea to spank, and that we adults utilize spanking if we want to be obedient to God. What’s especially chilling, however, is the manner in which adults are instructed to carry out such “discipline.” Says one discipline manual, some children “will require enough strokes to receive stripes or even welts … Parents should not be overly concerned if such minor injuries do result from their chastisement as it is perfectly normal” (109).
Lotufo links such calls for severe punishment as a living-out of God’s will back to the psychological repercussions of belief in the penal substitution theory of atonement, which depicts a wrathful God who demands violence to set things right in a sinful world. Borrowing the concept of “doublethink” from George Orwell’s 1984, Lotufo argues that holding contradictory views about God as loving and wrathful is “abundantly present in conservative theologians’ writings” (113). Lofuto then links his critique of theological doublethink to psychological studies that track cognitive dissonance that occurs when we hold incompatible beliefs simultaneously. Lotufo proposes that such psychological interpretations help make more visible—and can even be used to overcome—such dissonance.
In the book’s final chapter, Lotufo explores the too-little-studied intersection of religion and mental health, calling for more attention to the spiritual dimension of mental health conditions. In the face of an aversion by psychologists to talk about guilt, Lotufo insists that addressing the anxiety that arises out of peoples’ sense of guilt and condemnation by a vengeful God can prompt Christians to interrogate and ultimately even replace such harmful images. As is clear from the book’s title, Lofuto hopes images of a cruel God will be replaced by images of a kind God—seen most powerfully in Jesus’ life and actions—who promises healing and deliverance from sin.
While Lotufo makes a compelling case for the need to speak directly to Christians who embrace harmful practices of child discipline as well as self-hatred due to their own sinfulness, the dualistic—even Marcionite—view of God as either kind or cruel that runs through this text needs to become more nuanced. Certainly Lotufo’s goal of using psychology as a tool to work through and move beyond a God who is unremittingly vengeful is a worthy one. At the same time, the drive toward an unremittingly kind God still leaves many questions, such as: What are we to do with the God of the Bible, who seems irreducibly loving and wrathful? Are liberation theologians wrong when they insist that a God without wrath will not do much liberating? Lotufo convincingly presents his case for usefulness of resources from psychology for those who continue to be harmed by images of a cruel God. What he ends up offering, though—the gesturing toward an always-kind God—falls short of the God whose love requires judgment against the sins of injustice and violence that continue to be perpetuated in God’s name.