Brian McLaren recalls how he felt led to reach out to local mosques in the days after the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks:
While praying, I felt a voice speaking, as it were, in my chest: Your Muslim neighbors are in danger of reprisal. You must try to protect them. The next morning, I wrote and made copies of a letter extending, belatedly, friendship toward Muslim communities in my area, and offering solidarity and help if simmering anti-Muslim sentiments should be translated into action. I drove to the three mosques nearby—I had never visited them before—and tried to deliver my letter in person. The first two were locked tight—no doubt for fear of reprisals….
When I arrived at the third … I clumsily introduced myself as the pastor from down the street…. I then handed [the imam] my letter, which he opened and read as I stood there awkwardly…. Suddenly, he threw his arms around me—a perfect stranger…. I still remember the feeling of his head pressed against my chest, squeezing me as if I were his long-lost brother.
“It means so much to me that you have come,” he said. “Please, please, please come inside.”… My host welcomed me not with hostility or even suspicion, but with the open heart of a friend. And so that day a friendship began between an Evangelical pastor named Brian and a Muslim imam we’ll call Ahmad.
A few days later, the youth group from our church made a colorful banner expressing their desire for there to be friendship between the youth of the mosque and the youth of our church…. The mosque began hosting community dinners to which our people were invited along with people from other faith communities in the area….
The friendship between our congregations grew through a series of interfaith dialogues … and Ahmad and I began meeting for lunch every month or so…. If Ahmad wanted to talk about something or arrange for our next lunch meeting, he knew one place one day each week where I could be found—Sunday mornings at church….
Some people were, I imagine, a little shocked at first to see a Muslim cleric walking through the church lobby as people chatted over coffee and bagels. But because our congregations had developed a friendship, he was soon recognized and welcomed…. There was something wonderfully right about Ahmad feeling so at home that he could come find me before or between services on a Sunday….
Imagine what might happen around the world if more and more Christians rediscover that central to Christian life and mission is what we could call subversive or transgressive friendship—friendship that crosses boundaries of otherness and dares to offer and receive hospitality…. Imagine the good that could happen—and the evil that could be prevented from happening—if more Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, and others cross the roads and other barriers that have separated them, and discover one another as friends.
From Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. (Brad Jersak)
Matthew 7
16 “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? 17 In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will know them by their fruits.”
In context, Jesus warns his immediate audience about false prophets. He coined the phrase “wolves in sheep’s clothing” in the previous verse. Then in the paragraph above, he lays out a simple rubric for who passes or fails the test of credibility: “You will know them by their fruits.”
I’m not interested in pointing fingers at false prophets today. I know all too well Jesus’ warning in this same sermon how we’re judged by the measure with which we judge. This passage does, however, make an important point about the criteria by which we can distinguish healthy teaching from the unhealthy content that should be tossed into the fire. It’s all about the fruit.
Biblical & Theological Debate
Religious movements spend an awesome about of time, energy, and ink trying to sort truth from error in biblical and theological debate. It’s an industry of which I’ve spent much of my life, whether behind pulpits, in classrooms, on social media, or the publishing world. There’s probably something important happening in those conversations (IF they every get beyond duelling monologues, weaponizing sacred texts, or flexing our factions).
But in this text, Jesus cuts to the chase: just watch the fruit. If the fruit of our teaching, preaching, writing, or theology nurtures or heals or restores, perhaps we’re on the right track. When you can recognize and identify a pattern of damage, I’m not convinced further biblical or theological debate is necessary.
When God is an Abuser
One of our students at St. Stephen’s University saw this clearly. Tabitha Sheeder is an experienced domestic violence advocate with experience in recognizing the signs of abuse in her clients, including the violence of power over and control by abusive partners. Her trauma-informed ministry helps those who’ve suffered to move forward.
As Tabitha researched her M.A. thesis, she became aware of patterns of religious trauma that looked eerily familiar, a pattern of indoctrination in which believers in a particular construct of God showed the same signs she had seen in her clients. The common factor was the notion of divine retribution. Out of those studies, she gathered her findings into capstone thesis titled “When God Is an Abuser: Dismantling the Abusive Gospel of Original Sin, Penal Substitutionary Atonement, and Eternal Conscious Torment.”
The abstract of her essay, which I think needs to published as a book, includes this description:
Rooted in power and control, this retribution-laden theology bears similar markers to the tactics used by domestic violence perpetrators. This thesis will argue that this “gospel” proves to be abusive, and the God behind it is an abuser. While others have argued against these dogmas using biblical, theological, and philosophical grounds, I will demonstrate, using the tools of a domestic violence advocate, that their most potent refutation is their inability to pass the litmus test laid out by Jesus in Matthew 7:15-20: “Good trees cannot bear bad fruit.”
The Moral Community
From there, Tabitha completed her project by describing a healthy alternative—a “moral community” that conveys a liberating counter-narrative and bears the good fruit and restored people we’d associate with a healthy gospel.
Anyway, Tabitha’s point is simple and poignant. Jesus’ model for testing truth from error was not about who could win in a biblical or theological debate. That’s often just a test of one’s rhetorical skills. Watch the fruit. Fear or freedom? Hatred or kindness? Exclusion or hospitality? Withering or flourishing? I guess we’d need to examine what we imagine good fruit looks like, but I found Tabitha’s thesis and Jesus’ point as profound as it is simple.
