Hospitality for a Gospel-hungry World

For the past several months, I have been researching the topic of Christian hospitality, particularly in education. Throughout that time, I’ve been trying to read up not only on scholarly journals, but also on some of the more accessible books on the subject.

My favorite books thus far on the topic include Rosaria Butterfield’s The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (2012) and The Gospel Comes with a House Key (2018), Edward L. Smither’s Mission as Hospitality (2021), and few others by co-author teams like Widening the Welcome of Your Church (1996) and The Simplest Way to Change the World (2017). I still have yet to read what some consider the seminal textbook on the issue, Christine Pohl’s Making Room or Amy Oden’s anthology, And You Welcomed Me: A Sourcebook on Hospitality in Early Christianity.

I name all of these books, first, to help me keep them straight and, second, to dispel the idea that “hospitality” is a tiny subject easily described in a sentence or two. Rather, it’s a major Christian doctrine that’s been marginalized, far too often misunderstood and confused with simple “entertaining.” Authors like the above-mentioned have attempted to resurrect this ancient practice of hospitality as the church’s key avenue of Gospel witness: we’re not called first to bring strangers through the doors of the church but rather to welcome them through the doors of our homes.

This has been a rewarding study for me, and now that I’ve had time to mull over the books that I’ve read and compare their merits, I feel a bit more prepared to review them honestly. That being said, Amy Oden’s God’s Welcome has been my least favorite read thus far. In fact, I found myself interacting with her misguided ideas (or misinterpretations of Scripture) more than enjoying her viewpoints on hospitality!

At the time of publication (and I have not researched this any further), Oden was professor of history of Christianity at Wesley Theological Seminary, having earned her Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University. I don’t much about these schools, and I’ve known some biblically-sound Methodists before, but I sense from Oden’s writing a dangerous universalism that ignores every element of the true Gospel described in Scripture.

The so-called “Gospel” Oden hints at in this book needn’t involve such ugly and tertiary elements as sin, repentance, or the work of Jesus on the cross. Seriously, how unwelcoming! Instead, she describes how we’re all God’s children, whether we recognize it or not, and He’s already welcomed us into His life: we just need to acknowledge it. The “Gospel” in her view means “Come as you are!” (and apparently sat that way too—it doesn’t really matter). God loves you. “You are God’s precious, beloved child. Welcome.” (27)

So I’m challenged to inquire:

• Does God love all humanity? Absolutely—John 3:16 and countless other verses testify to this truth.
• Does God desire that all come to Him (i.e., is He a welcoming God)? Of course—see Matthew 11:28, 2Peter 3:9, and others.
• Are we all God’s children? Emphatically NO!

Jesus makes it clear that we are all naturally born children of the Devil (John 8:44) who require a change, a rebirth (John 3), to become a new creation (2Cor 5:17). God’s children would not require adoption into His family (that’s logically inconsistent), yet that’s exactly what we need (Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5). Only God’s children can become joint-heirs with Christ, something not true of all humanity (see Romans 8, esp. v.17). As if these verses weren’t enough (and I’m barely scratching the surface here), 1John 3:1-3 declares that not everyone can be called “the children of God”:

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (KJV)

Throughout Oden’s book, this foundational misunderstanding of the biblical Gospel permeates everything she writes. She relates a few illustrations of “the transformative power of the Gospel,” (14) for example Josh, who first recognized the welcoming attitude of his church people who “seemed to accept him as he was,” (13) which then helped him to understand that he had also been welcomed by God. Soon, he “started to see himself as a child of God, loved and received into God’s life.” (14) No repentance necessary. No acknowledgment of sin and the need for a Savior. Heck, no need even to mention Jesus, the cross, the resurrection, or any of those nasty outdate words like “atonement,” “propitiation,” or “justification.” Nope. All Josh needed was acceptance and the realization that God loved him and welcomed him as he was, because he was already God’s child.

Another “beautiful moment of conversion” Oden shares is that of Anne Lamott (31-32) who, while attending church “so hung over that I couldn’t stand up for the songs,” was struck by the deep, raw purity of one song.

It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid…I took a long deep breath and said out loud, “All right. You can come in.”

She couldn’t even name this “something” and yet this passes as a supposed salvation testimony. It’s heretical, and I have Romans 10:9-10 to support that charge. What do Oden or Lamott have? Fuzzy feelings?

I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you. While this book contains a few insightful lines about Christian hospitality, I’m not going to share them. Instead, I’m leaving this review as a warning that, even though it’s subtitled “Hospitality for a Gospel-hungry World,” this book is anything but Gospel-focused. Jesus came into this world to save sinners (of whom I am at least one of the foremost, 1Timothy 1:15), not to tell us that we’re all God’s children and welcome as we are: no repentance required.

To paraphrase 2Timothy 3:5, this book has the appearance of godliness but denies its power. Avoid such books.

©2021 E.T.