Where was God when Jesus died? Some have characterized the cross as divine child abuse—the Father beating the snot out of his Son—to critique the notion that God is actively present doing something at the cross. Others claim if God left the building, it’s neglect and abandonment. While both of these are caricatures, it’s worth asking:

Many today are distressed by Old Testament violence, particularly Israel’s encounter with Canaan. While this is too big a topic to tackle fully in a blog post, I want to share a few paradigm shifts that have been helpful for me.

The following post is written by my friend Joshua Ryan Butler and it's the second of three that he'll write this week. (His first one is HERE.)  Josh has written a killer book titled The Skeletons in God's Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, and the Hope of Holy War. In this second blog, Josh looks at God's judgment through a different lens.

Many people fear hell is a skeleton in God’s closet, an underground torture chamber that makes God look like a sadistic torturer. But I’ve found many people have a caricature of what’s actually happening in the biblical story.