I received a super question from Susanne:

Hello! Recently I had a ministry partner tell me after I had reviewed the statement of faith from our ministry that she has a problem with penal substitutionary atonement. We have met two times to discuss. Much of her change in theology is from Brian Zahnd. How can I help her to understand Zahnd is a false teacher? She believes Jesus died for our sins but it was never God’s plan for Jesus to go to the cross.

That led me to do some research on Brian Zahnd (pronounced Zond as in Zondervan). He is a pastor (Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, MO) and author.

I found an excellent video by Mike Winger (BibleThinker.org) explaining many ways in which Zahnd is a false teacher.ⁱ See here.

Zahnd is part of a group of Christian authors and speakers (e.g., Greg Boyd, Bruxy Cavey, Preston Sprinkle, David Fitch) who are seeking to revise Christianity to fit their understanding of what it should be. They are called deconstructing Christians.

At TheGospelCoalition.org website, Alisa Childers says, “The deconstruction movement has little to do with objective truth, and everything to do with tearing down whatever doctrine someone believes is morally wrong” (see here). Childers concluded, “Deconstruction…carries the potential to suck unsuspecting Christians into a dangerous vortex of influences from which they might not return.”

Zahnd believes the OT sacrificial system was a mistake, corrected by later writers in the OT. Of course, if that is true, then the idea that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) must be a mistake as well. It is easy to see how Susanne’s friend ceased to believe in penal substitutionary atonement after being influenced by Zahnd.

One of Zahnd’s books is titled, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God. It is an obvious slam on Jonathan Edwards’s famous 1741 sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

I found a helpful (though long) review of that book by Derek Rishmawy, who happens to be a campus minister at my college alma mater, the University of California, Irvine. I recommend you read the review. See here.

Rishmawy wrote that Zahnd is saying that “We need to recognize parts of the Bible may be wrong, sinful even, and obsolete, but ‘nothing about the risen Christ is obsolete’ (61).” In other words, Zahnd believes that his understanding of Jesus allows him to determine what parts of the Bible are good and what parts are evil. Rishmawy adds, “Both Marcion and Zahnd tell us that looking at Jesus means massive, sweeping portions of what the prophets and apostles testify about God (in both Testaments) is categorically false.”

Rishmawy gives examples of how Zahnd cites parables of Jesus that seem to support his idea that God does not judge anyone for anything they do, while at the same time ignoring all the parables of Jesus that teach accountability. That sums up Zahnd’s approach to the whole Bible. He cuts out all the teachings he doesn’t think are just and right and keeps only those texts of which he approves.

Concerning what we must do to have everlasting life, I found a 2011 article in which Zahnd seems to be advocating universalism:

We must not think that salvation comes about because Jesus placates God (thus changing God) or that God is obligated to satisfy retributive justice in order to forgive sin (thus making God subordinate to a higher justice). Salvation comes about because Jesus reveals the Father and does the Father’s work. Jesus tells us that the great work of the Father is to give life to the dead (see John 5 and 11). Thus the primary problem the Gospel addresses is not personal guilt (though this is included), but human subjugation to death. If we think judicial guilt is the primary problem of sin, instead of death (and then falsely imagine that God is responsible for killing Jesus instead of sinful humanity!), we greatly misrepresent the nature of salvation and concoct a distorted gospel where Jesus is saving us from God. No! Jesus reveals the Father, does the work of the Father, and saves us from the dominion of sin and death (see here).

Near the end of the Winger video is a quote in which Zahnd says that he has doubts about hell and who is going there. It sounds as if he doubts that anyone is.

I welcome a magazine and/or journal article about Zahnd and Christian deconstructionism. I hope this short blog has alerted you to the danger of Zahnd and this movement. If so, it will help you keep grace in focus.

ⁱ I do not know what Winger’s view of the saving message is. But he has a very high view of the Bible and its inerrancy. I much appreciate his love for and defense of God’s Word.