When Our Preaching Makes God Look Like an Unforgiving God

There is something increasingly troubling about the way some Christian and Muslim preachers speak about God. Listen to some sermons and one could easily come away with the impression that God is sitting somewhere in Heaven, waiting for human beings to make mistakes so He can punish them. Hell is everywhere. The punishment of the grave is everywhere. Doom is everywhere. One mistake, one sinful thought, one forbidden act, one moment of weakness, and the preacher is quick to remind you of the terrible consequences awaiting you.

Sometimes God is presented less as a loving Father and more as a stern policeman hiding behind a corner, waiting to catch the offender. But is that the whole story? Is that even the dominant picture of God in the very scriptures from which these preachers draw their authority? Perhaps we have become so fascinated with frightening people into righteousness that we have forgotten to tell them about mercy. Perhaps we have become so occupied with telling people where sinners will end up that we have forgotten to tell them how God receives the sinner who wants to come home. And perhaps, without intending to, some of our preaching makes God look like a wicked God.

The Prodigal Son
We start with the father who did not wait to punish his son. Consider one of Christianity's most beautiful stories: the story of the Prodigal Son. A young man takes his inheritance and leaves home. He wastes it. He makes terrible decisions. He ends up in misery. Eventually, he comes to his senses and decides to return home. He knows he has done wrong. He knows he does not deserve the position he once enjoyed. He is prepared to return as a servant. But something extraordinary happens.

His father sees him while he is still far away. The father does not stand at the gate with a list of his son's offences. He does not say: “Where have you been?” “Where is the money I gave you?” “Why did you disgrace the family?” He runs to meet him. He embraces him. He welcomes him home. He orders that the best robe be brought. He puts a ring on his finger. And there is a celebration.

That is not a picture of a God desperately looking for reasons to condemn. It is a picture of a God who rejoices when the lost return. Pope Francis has repeatedly drawn attention to this very point, describing the parable as a revelation of the merciful Father and God's readiness to welcome the person who returns. The message is powerful: The person who has gone astray is not necessarily the person God has abandoned.

The Woman Everyone Had Already Condemned

There is another extraordinary story in the New Testament. A woman caught in adultery is brought before Jesus. Her accusers have already decided what should happen to her. They want judgment. They want punishment. They want Jesus to endorse their condemnation. But Jesus turns the situation around. “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.” One by one, they leave. The woman remains. And Jesus does not tell her that her conduct was acceptable. He tells her to go and sin no more.

There is an important lesson here. Mercy does not mean saying that sin does not matter. Mercy means recognizing that the sinner is still a human being. The wrongdoing can be condemned without destroying the person. The mistake can be acknowledged without declaring the person beyond redemption. That distinction is important because sometimes religious preaching appears to confuse condemnation of sin with condemnation of the sinner.

Islam Has its Own Extraordinary Stories of Mercy

Islam contains equally powerful reminders of divine mercy. The Qur'an says: “Do not despair of the mercy of Allah.” That injunction is particularly striking because it is addressed to people who have transgressed against themselves. The message is not simply: “You have sinned.” It is: “Do not despair.”

And then there is the extraordinary story of the woman who gave water to a thirsty dog. The woman was a prostitute. Society could easily have dismissed her as immoral and unworthy. But she saw a creature dying of thirst. She drew water from the well and gave it to the dog. In Sahih Muslim, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is reported to have said that she was forgiven because of that act. Think about the lesson. The woman had a history. But God saw an act of compassion. Human beings may remember someone's worst moment. God may see something else. We see the offence. God sees the whole person. That should make religious people humble.

A Man Came to the Prophet Expecting Punishment

There is another remarkable narration which fits this discussion even more directly. A man came to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and said that he had committed an offence carrying a prescribed punishment. He did not come boasting about what he had done. He came asking that the punishment be imposed upon him. The Prophet (pbuh) asked him whether he had performed ablution when he came. The man said yes. He then asked whether the man had prayed with them. Again, the man said yes. And then came the astonishing response: The Prophet (pbuh) told him to leave because Allah had forgiven him. The narration appears in Sunan Abi Dawud 4381 and is graded sahih by al-Albani.

Think about that for a moment. The man came expecting punishment. The Prophet (pbuh) did not tell him: “You are finished.” He did not tell him: “You have no hope.” He did not tell him: “God will never forgive somebody like you.” Instead, he told him that Allah had forgiven him. That should make every preacher pause. If God can forgive somebody whom the human being standing before Him expects to be punished, who are we to assume that we know the limits of God's mercy?

Ibrahim ibn-Adham and the Drunkard

There is a beautiful Sufi story about Ibrahim ibn-Adham, one of the celebrated figures of early Sufism. Ibrahim once encountered a drunkard whose mouth was foul. One might expect a religious ascetic to rebuke him. Instead, Ibrahim fetched water and washed the man's mouth. Why? The story records Ibrahim as saying, in effect, that he could not leave foul the mouth that had once uttered the name of God.

When the drunkard later learned what Ibrahim had done, he was deeply moved and repented. The story then relates that Ibrahim heard in a dream that because he had washed a mouth for God's sake, God had washed the man's heart. This account appears in retellings of Farid al-Din Attar's Tadhkirat al-Awliya. This is a Sufi spiritual account, not a hadith, and it should be understood as such.

But its lesson is beautiful. Ibrahim did not approve of drunkenness. He did not tell the man that drunkenness was acceptable. He simply refused to treat the sinner as though he were beyond redemption. He saw something in the drunkard that perhaps the drunkard himself had forgotten: He was still capable of returning to God. What if more preaching worked like that? What if, instead of making sinners feel that God had permanently rejected them, we helped them believe that returning was still possible? The mercy of God is not a minor footnote.

There is an extraordinary Hadith Qudsi recorded in Jami' at-Tirmidhi. Allah is reported as saying: “O son of Adam! Were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky, then you sought forgiveness from Me, I would forgive you.” The narration continues that even if a person came with sins nearly as great as the earth, but met Allah without associating partners with Him, Allah would come with forgiveness nearly as great. At-Tirmidhi describes the narration as hasan gharib; other hadith scholars have graded it more strongly. What a remarkable image. Sins reaching the clouds. Forgiveness reaching almost as far. Yet sometimes our sermons make God's mercy sound tiny and His anger enormous. Why?

We Sometimes Forget that Human Beings Are Imperfect

Perhaps one of the greatest weaknesses in some modern preaching is that human beings are treated as though they are supposed to be perfect. But human beings are not perfect. They never have been. They make mistakes. They fall. They become weak. They lose their way. They make decisions they later regret. Sometimes they know what is right and still do what is wrong. That does not make wrongdoing right. But understanding human weakness should make us compassionate.

The unemployed young man does not face the same pressures as the wealthy professional. The hungry person does not experience temptation in exactly the same way as the person whose basic needs are satisfied. The abused woman does not carry the same emotional burden as someone living in peace. The lonely old man who has been abandoned by his children may fight battles that nobody sees. Human beings are complicated. Perhaps our preaching should sometimes acknowledge that complexity.

Even Preachers are Human Beings
There is another uncomfortable issue. Sometimes preachers speak about sinners as though they themselves are completely free from human weakness. But the preacher is human. The imam is human. The pastor is human. The bishop is human. The sheikh is human. They have weaknesses. They have temptations. They have regrets. They have private struggles. They have moments when their faith may be weak. The congregation simply may not know about them. Perhaps, therefore, religious authority should produce humility rather than superiority. The more one understands God's mercy, the less confident one should become about declaring another person's final destiny.

Confusing Conviction with Condemnation

Conviction says: “You have done wrong. Come back.” Condemnation says: “You are worthless. There is no hope for you.” Conviction leaves a door open. Condemnation closes it. The father in the Prodigal Son left the door open. Jesus left the door open for the woman caught in adultery. The Qur'an tells sinners not to despair of God's mercy. The Prophet (pbuh) told a man who expected punishment that Allah had forgiven him. The story of the woman and the thirsty dog shows mercy reaching someone society might have condemned. The story of Ibrahim ibn-Adham and the drunkard shows compassion becoming the beginning of repentance. Again and again, the religious traditions point towards a profound truth: Mercy can reach places where human judgment has already given up.

Deciding Who Goes to Hell
This may be one of the most dangerous habits in religious discourse. We hear people confidently announcing: “This person is going to hell.” “That group is going to hell.” “That politician is going to hell.” “That Christian is going to hell.” “That Muslim is going to hell.” “That sinner is going to hell.” But who appointed us? The scriptures warn us about judgment. They do not give us a license to become the final judge of everybody around us. Perhaps the more religious we become, the humbler we should become about other people's final destiny. We can teach. We can warn. We can advise. We can encourage repentance. But final judgment belongs to God.

People Need Hope
There are people sitting in churches and mosques today who are quietly losing hope. They may not say it. They may smile. They may sing. They may pray. But inside, they are tired. The widow wondering how she will survive. The pensioner whose money disappears within days. The unemployed graduate who has applied for dozens of jobs. The parent unable to pay school fees. The sick person who cannot afford treatment. The young man who has failed repeatedly. The woman trapped in an abusive relationship. The elderly person who has nobody to depend upon. These people do not necessarily need another sermon telling them how terrible hell is. They may need somebody to remind them that life can change. They may need somebody to tell them: “You have not been forgotten.” “You can begin again.” “Your mistake is not the end of your story.” “Do not despair of God's mercy.”

The Difference between Fear and Faith

There is certainly a place for fear of God. There is a place for warnings. There is a place for accountability. But fear should not become the entire foundation of religious life. A child who obeys his father only because he fears punishment has a different relationship with his father from a child who obeys because he loves and respects him. Perhaps our relationship with God should also grow beyond fear. There should be reverence. There should be love. There should be gratitude. There should be hope. There should be trust. Religion should not merely make people afraid of what God might do to them. It should also help them understand what God's mercy can do for them.

What Kind of God Are We Presenting to the Young?

Young people are watching. They are asking questions. They are growing up in a difficult world. They see poverty beside extraordinary wealth. They see corruption. They see injustice. They see religious people sometimes behaving differently from what they preach. And then they hear that God is waiting to punish them. We should not be surprised when some become confused. Young people need to hear about accountability. But they also need to hear about compassion. They need to hear about forgiveness. They need to hear about second chances. They need to know that making a mistake does not make them permanently worthless. They need to know that asking questions does not make them enemies of God. They need to know that repentance is possible.

The Sociologist and the Philosopher Teach Us

Religion should not be afraid of insights from sociology, philosophy and psychology. Human beings are shaped by families, communities, economic circumstances, culture and relationships. Émile Durkheim's sociological work, for example, emphasized that human behaviour and moral life are deeply connected to the social environment in which people live. That does not eliminate individual responsibility. But it should make us cautious about simplistic judgments. The philosopher Hannah Arendt, in a very different context, wrote about the importance of thinking rather than simply following established judgments. Perhaps religion also needs reflective people who can ask: What does this sermon do to the person listening? Does it bring him closer to God? Does it encourage repentance? Does it make him more compassionate? Or does it simply frighten him? Does it make a broken person seek God? Or does it make him believe God has already rejected him? These are important questions.

Pope Francis and the Theology of Mercy

Pope Francis has repeatedly made mercy central to Christian teaching. His reflections on the Prodigal Son emphasize the Father's willingness to welcome the returning child. He has also repeatedly warned religious ministers against becoming judges who forget that they themselves live by God's mercy. That message is worth hearing across religious boundaries. The person who knows he has been forgiven should become more forgiving, not more judgmental.

Perhaps We Need to Preach God Differently

Perhaps Christian and Muslim clerics need to remind their congregations that God is not only the God of judgment. He is also the God people turn to when they have nowhere else to go. The God of the brokenhearted. The God of the repentant. The God of the desperate. The God of the person who has fallen and wants to rise again. The God who sees what human beings cannot see. The God who knows the circumstances behind the tears. The God who knows the battles people fight silently.

We should certainly teach people to do right. But we should also teach them that when they fail, they should not give up. Tell the sinner to repent. But tell him that repentance is possible. Tell the wrongdoer to change. But tell him that change is possible. Tell the person who has fallen to get up. But do not make him believe that because he has fallen, God has abandoned him.

Avoid Making God Smaller than His Mercy

Perhaps this is the lesson we have forgotten. God does not need human beings to make Him more frightening. God does not need our threats to establish His authority. He does not need us to frighten every sinner into submission. And He certainly does not need us to convince people that He is incapable of forgiveness. Religion should bring people closer to God, not make them afraid to approach Him.

There is a place for fear. But there must also be love. There is a place for warning. But there must also be hope. There is a place for judgment. But there must also be mercy. And perhaps, in an increasingly troubled world, what people need most from their religious leaders is not another reminder that they are doomed. They need to be reminded that they are human. That they are imperfect. That they can fall. That they can repent. That they can change. That they can begin again.

The Greatest Sermon
Perhaps the greatest religious sermon is not the one that makes the congregation tremble. Perhaps it is the one that makes a broken person quietly wipe away a tear and say: “Maybe God has not given up on me.” The young man who thought he was finished may decide to start again. The woman carrying years of guilt may discover forgiveness. The alcoholic may seek help. The thief may return what he stole. The estranged child may call his parents. The angry father may apologize to his family. The abandoned pensioner may regain hope. The sinner may repent. And the person who had stopped believing in himself may begin again. That is the power of mercy. We should certainly preach judgment when our scriptures require us to. We should certainly teach accountability. But let us not preach hell so loudly that people forget Heaven. Let us not preach judgment so loudly that people forget forgiveness. Let us not preach punishment so loudly that people forget compassion. And above all, let us not preach about God in such a way that the very people who desperately need Him become afraid to approach Him.

Perhaps the greatest lesson contained in the Prodigal Son, the woman caught in adultery, the forgiven woman who gave water to the thirsty dog, the man who came to the Prophet (pbuh) expecting punishment, and the Sufi story of Ibrahim ibn- Adham and the drunkard is this: We may know a person's sin without knowing God's judgment of that person. We see the failure. God sees the possibility. We see the past. God sees the future. We see the wound. God may see the healing. We see the person who has fallen. God may be waiting for the person to rise. And perhaps that is the God we should be preaching about too. Not a God without judgment, but a God whose judgment does not erase His mercy. Not a God who ignores wrongdoing, but a God who leaves the door open for the person who wants to come home. Not a God who delights in human destruction, but a God whose mercy gives broken human beings the courage to begin again.

Perhaps, after all, the question we should ask ourselves is not merely: “How frightening is my sermon?” but: “After hearing me speak about God, does the broken person still believe that God wants him to come home?”

Most importantly, we need to talk to God ourselves. Perhaps, after all the sermons, warnings, arguments and theological debates, we sometimes forget something very simple: we need to build a personal relationship with God. We must learn to talk to Him ourselves. Not only through the preacher. Not only through the imam. Not only through the priest, pastor or sheikh. There is a time to listen to religious leaders, to learn from scripture and to seek guidance from those who are knowledgeable. But there must also be a time when we go to God directly. Find a quiet place. Find a quiet moment. Be alone. Put aside the noise of the world. And talk to God. Tell Him: “I have sinned. Forgive me.” “I am weak. Make me strong.” “I am afraid. Give me courage.” “I do not know what tomorrow holds. Guide me.” “I am carrying burdens that nobody knows about. Help me.” “I have hopes and aspirations. Help me to pursue them in the right way.” “I have failed. Help me to rise again.”

We should be able to lay before God our fears, our hopes, our disappointments, our dreams and our deepest aspirations. We should be able to tell Him about the things we cannot tell anybody else. And perhaps that is what a personal relationship with God really means: not merely knowing about God, but knowing God. Let us not make God so distant that we become afraid to speak to Him. Let us not make Him appear so inaccessible that we believe we must always approach Him through intermediaries.

The preacher can teach us. The imam can guide us. The priest can counsel us. The scholar can help us understand scripture. But ultimately, our relationship with God is ours. When we are alone at night, when everybody has gone to sleep, when the world is quiet and there is nobody to impress, that may be the best time to speak to Him. Tell Him everything. Tell Him where you have failed. Tell Him where you are hurting. Tell Him what you fear. Tell Him what you hope for. Ask Him for forgiveness. Ask Him for strength. Ask Him for wisdom. Ask Him for patience. Ask Him to guide you through the trials of this world.

And then listen. Perhaps God will not answer in the way we expect. Perhaps the answer will not come immediately. Perhaps the answer will come through an unexpected person, an unexpected opportunity, a change of heart, a moment of clarity or simply the strength to endure another day. But let us keep the conversation going. Because faith should not merely be about hearing people talk about God. Sometimes it should be about sitting quietly and talking to God. And perhaps when we build that personal relationship with Him, we will begin to understand something our fear-filled sermons sometimes make us forget: God is not waiting for us to fail. He is waiting for us to return. And when we fall, perhaps the most important thing is not to run away from Him in shame. It is to turn towards Him and say: “Ya-Allah, I have fallen. Please help me get up.” That may be the beginning of the most important conversation of our lives. Trust me, it works!

FUSEINI ABDULAI BRAIMAH
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