​Unblaming God
​
Discovering Divine Tenderness Beyond Tragedy​


an appreciative response/review
​of Deanna M. Young's Unblaming God
​

Life's tragedies often lead us to question and blame God, but a different understanding offers a new perspective. After blaming God for the tragedies of life and imagining this God as a bully in the sky, perhaps even orchestrating the tragedies, we can, with the help of open and relational theology, unblame God and discover a God who was, and is, always present. This is a God whose essential nature is non-coercive love, who dwells within each of us a lure toward wholeness, and who is also beyond us as a deep listening who shares in our joy and suffering, and in whose presence we live and move and have our being. Many speak of this God as the God of Love. I will speak of God's presence as The Deep Tenderness. We need many names.
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This unblamed God, the Deep Tenderness, conflicts with images of God in some biblical texts. We all know that. However, when these texts are read through the lens of Jesus, they can come to life, offering life lessons, even if the images of God may need to be rejected. This is the thesis of Deanna M. Young in her book, Unblaming God: Interpreting the Old Testament Through the Lens of Jesus Christ (SacraSage Books, 2023). Click here to purchase.

In what follows I offer a response to her book from the point of view of a recovering addict, himself a Christian, who doesn't read the Bible very much, but is challenged to be more "biblical" by friends in recovery. This is an actual example; I have a friend in recovery in just this situation. I will call him Alex. My hope is that my friends in recovery, too, can find sustenance in the God of tenderness - a God who for many surfaces only after a period of blaming. I think Jesus is a window through which the tenderness shines, as through a dove in a stained glass window. 

​- Jay McDaniel

​A Deep Tenderness 

for Alex

Imagine you're a Christian who believes God is love. Once, you believed in a God of anger and wrath, preoccupied with being flattered, obsessed with reward and punishment, and prone to mood swings. But over time, you began to see God as a Deep Tenderness at work in the world—present in love, healing, kindness, and beauty. You see this Tenderness in healthy relationships, forgiveness, and creative transformation, as experienced in your journey beyond drug addiction. Your sobriety, you believe, is a gift from this Tenderness. You know the healing side of the Tenderness from the inside.

You want to live by this belief while taking the Bible seriously. You cherish parts of it, like the Twenty-Third Psalm, the Beatitudes, and the message of love in 1 Corinthians. However, you're aware of certain passages, especially in the Old Testament, that seem to contradict your belief in a loving God. You have some conservative Christian friends in your recovery group who challenge you on this often. They say that you need to recognize that God isn't as loving as you imagine. "There's a harshness to God," says one. "Get over your sentimental hope that God is about kindness and beauty." Some even see their own lives, everything that happens to them, as part of God's plan!

"Even your struggle with addiction?," you ask. They stay silent. You know what they're thinking. They're thinking that, in relation to their own addiction, they had to cooperate with the Tenderness. It cannot act unilaterally. You agree. The gift of sobriety, including your own, does not come from God alone. It also comes from your own cooperation with God's healing spirit.

How do you reconcile your belief in this Spirit, in the deep Tenderness, with these conflicting messages that are in the Bible.

Deanna M. Young, an elder in the United Methodist Church, can help. She offers guidance in her book Unblaming God: Interpreting the Old Testament Through the Lens of Jesus Christ. With her experience as a pastor, preacher, teacher, writer, retreat speaker, and artist, Young interprets troubling Old Testament stories through the lens of Jesus. She encourages readers to engage with these texts without hiding from their harshness, suggesting a way to reframe them without discarding them.

Young’s exploration begins with a poignant encounter with a young man named "John" contemplating suicide due to life’s overwhelming challenges. His image of God as a "bully in the sky" conflicted with Young's belief in a loving God. The encounter inspired her to address the problematic texts that depict God as tyrannical.

In Unblaming God, she offers an in-depth exploration of biblical interpretation, historical context, and the challenges of reconciling these texts with a loving image of God. To reconcile the seemingly violent and destructive portrayals of God in the Old Testament, she approaches these stories through the lens of Jesus. She reinterprets four challenging biblical narratives, unblaming God for the violence and suffering depicted, and instead seeking spiritual lessons relevant to our lives today. Here's a summary of these reinterpreted stories:

The Flood Story: Young suggests that God's actions in the flood narrative are inconsistent with the God revealed through Jesus. She emphasizes that natural disasters are not caused by God, who instead offers guidance and salvation. This portrayal presents God as a covenant partner always present with humanity.

The Sacrifice of Isaac: Young examines the story's cultural and historical context, arguing that God would not demand such an act. She highlights the importance of understanding the author's perspective, suggesting that the story teaches God’s presence and guidance without causing harm.

Canaanite Genocide: Young challenges the depiction of God commanding violence, contrasting it with Jesus' message of mercy. She attributes the Israelites' actions to their belief in a Warrior God and encourages readers to reject actions that harm others, as these do not align with God's love.

The Book of Job: Young explores the theme of suffering, suggesting that humanity’s agency is responsible for the world's suffering. She emphasizes God’s presence during trials, even when unnoticed, and portrays God as loving and guiding us toward a deeper understanding of God's nature.

Young goes into a great amount of detail - literary, theological, and historical - in making these points. Her work offers a compassionate and thoughtful perspective, helping Christians reconcile challenging biblical narratives with their faith in a loving and tender God.

Can you, as a recovering addict, be enriched by her book? Yes, you can. You may not turn to these texts for comfort or inspiration. They may remain in the background for you. But you can rightly recognize, with help from her book, that the Bible—the whole of it and not just parts of it—can be taken seriously, if not always literally, and that it can be a dialogue partner in your life. A dialogue partner is not a dictator nor a monologue-maker. For Young, the Bible has a voice but not veto power. She is unafraid.

You are grateful for her spirit. You sense that she, too, knows the Tenderness. Recall her encounter with a young man contemplating suicide. She helped him see his own story with God more clearly, using the lens of Jesus to emphasize God's love, empathy, and guidance. She shared the Tenderness with him and he with her. In her conclusion she writes:. 

Back to my story of John. I tried to help John see his own story with God more clearly, using the lens of Jesus. I helped him understand God’s love for him, how God suffers with him, and God would work with him to get him back on his feet. After a few minutes, I told him I would be back. I went to the staff and asked them to help this young man by donating money. I went back, and we discussed how he should go back to Canada and see about that defaulted loan. He told me he had no money to do this. I put almost $1,000 in his hands. He looked me in the eye and asked, “Why would you do this for me?” I told him, “Because God loves you and so do we.” He cried. We prayed. He assured me that suicide was no longer something he was going to do.

When they prayed together, when the burden of suicide was lifted, when they cried together - the Tenderness was at work: the very Love that was present to Job in his trials. The burden of suicide was not part of God's plan. John was not being "tested" by God. But divine Love was present in her response to him, and his response to her. 

There's something else this book can do for you, which is also connected with a God of Love. It can inspire you to be curious about the world, including, in this instance, the Bible. In open and relational theology, the Deep Tenderness, the God of Love, is inside each of us as an inwardly felt lure to think freely and openly, without fear, about the world, including the world of texts. For many, the Bible is approached not only with respect but also with fear. Not here, not in this book. Young shows you biblical scholarship at work, as one outlet of her faith in divine love. The Bible we meet through her is a friend with many voices, some attractive and some repelling, but all worth listening to, adding our own voice. There is no authoritarianism in this book. Only inquiry and a desire to help others, including the Johns of this world. 

- Jay McDaniel