It is very noticeable that the number of traditional Christian beliefs that are deemed beyond the pale is steadily growing. For some time now the slaughter of godless nations in the Old Testament and the idea of conscious torment in hell has been thought unworthy of any “God” deserving of love and respect. To those we can now add the idea that legitimate marriage can only be between one man and one woman. I suspect that there are a number of reasons for this, not least because they can all be hugely emotive when they concern people whom we know and care about (Luke 19:41; Romans 9:2-3). But there has also been a subtle and imperceptible shift in our thinking as a culture about what is and what isn’t “good”. Indeed, it is now evident in a number of ways that “nice” has become the new “good”! Therefore, it is increasingly the case that if something is considered not “nice” then it can’t be good. It is partly this cultural shift that has undermined our ability to gain a proper perspective on some of these difficult areas. The central problem for this way of thinking, is of course that the Bible nowhere describes God as “nice”! It says that he is good (Psalm 119:68), he is love (1 John 4:16) and he is light (1 John 1:5) but it never says that he is “nice”! Biblically, something can be good without being “nice” and the most obvious example of this is probably the orthodox Christian understanding of hell. We do still have some contemporary examples of where a distinction is rightly made between “nice” and “good”. For example, sending a murderer to prison for life is not “nice” but it is good. However, I think that when it comes to theology we leave unquestioned the assumption that “good” and “nice” are the same thing. The result can then be that small problems become big problems and eventually we feel compelled to stand in judgement over the God who made us! The fact is that ‘good’ is better than “nice” and we can be sure that the Judge of all the earth will do right (Genesis 18:25) because he cannot possibly do otherwise!
Simon