But What If the Bible Doesn’t Say That?

Adam Hamilton, Half Truths: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn't Say

We mainline Christians certainly love our platitudes. No matter what curveballs life throws, we inevitably have a ready-made cliché available. The problem is, we frequently think our preferred platitudes come from the Bible, which they most certainly don’t. Adam Hamilton, a United Methodist pastor from suburban Kansas City, collects five beloved platitudes which he believes impede Christians’ most direct experience of God, and God’s love.

Reverend Hamilton identifies the following five shopworn cliches, including several variations on their themes:

• “Everything Happens for a Reason”
• “God Helps Those Who Help Themselves”
• “God Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle”
• “God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It”
• “Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin”

These common expressions provide handy, nugget-sized servings of Christian layperson theology, which believers can deploy in nearly all circumstances. Each one, Reverend Hamilton admits, contains some amount of truth. As canned responses to life’s ever-changing happenstance, they’re broadly unsatisfying. Sometimes, things happen because they happen; or God’s word exists in context and doesn’t apply here; or we get so busy hating sins that we forget to love our neighbors.

Worse still, in Hamilton’s estimation: entirely too many Christians believe these bromides come from the Bible. He cites a Barna Group survey suggesting that as many as eight in ten Christians believe “God Helps Those Who Help Themselves” is biblical, which it isn’t. (I have a love-hate relationship with Barna research, but let’s accept it provisionally.) These clichés first substitute Man’s wisdom for God’s guidance, then elide the wisdom, leaving only cold comfort.

For instance, when telling hurting people that “God Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle,” we attribute everything that happens to God’s will. That’s pretty horrific, if you consider what catastrophes ordinary people face daily. Reverend Hamilton directly disparages Calvinist predestination, with its presumption that God planned everything you face before Creation. Scripture promises God will provide us tools to withstand life’s calamities, but not that God either gives or limits those calamities.

With each platitude, Hamilton similarly unpacks their theological meaning, and the harm they perpetuate. He admits each one has some element of truth, but that isn’t enough. When we limit our truths to easily memorized bromides, we miss God’s mission, and Christ’s love. The listeners for whom we deploy these platitudes need something deeper, so in relying on simplistic sayings, we not only short-change God, we miss our audience’s needs.

Reverend Adam Hamilton

Hamilton writes for a Christian audience, one which already believes Christ’s message of comfort and salvation in an unjust world. He writes to offer Christians necessary tools to convey that comfort to those suffering—which may, often enough, be ourselves. Too often, we Christians become so comfortable in our salvation that we reduce others’ spiritual struggles to Sunday School simplicity. Reverend Hamilton encourages us to unpack life’s difficult, subtle aspects.

If Reverend Hamilton has one overriding theme, it’s “nuance.” He expresses frustration with these platitudes because they’re unsubtle, and prevent Christians from thinking deeply about life’s most important topics. The questions which most deserve our scrutiny, get papered over with sayings we probably learned from our grandparents. Hamilton invites us to recognize that while these sayings aren’t necessarily wrong, they also seldom meet our own or anybody else’s spiritual needs.

This book began as a sermon series at Hamilton’s suburban congregation, and it retains the simple, breezy tone common in Protestant homiletics. (The publisher offers supplementary materials for adult Bible studies.) Large type and wide line spacing conceal the fact that, though over 160 pages, this book is short, barely more than a pamphlet. Hamilton offers discussion starters, not deep dives into major theological questions. That’s all some people need.

Therefore, this book whets my appetite without satisfying it. People who read voluntarily, generally want something more detailed and contemplative. Adults participating in Bible study might or might not read Hamilton’s short chapters; in-class videos, and the resulting conversation, will be the study’s heart. Hamilton briefly introduces how poets, saints, and ministers have addressed these difficult questions, then walks away, providing neither in-depth analysis nor sources for further independent study.

Don’t misunderstand me; as an introductory survey, I enjoy Hamilton’s points, and hope more Christians take his advice to heart. This book is a great beginning. But Christian bookstores are stuffed with great beginnings on important questions. Reverent Hamilton raises important points and debunks Christian myths that prevent us showing God’s love wholeheartedly. I just hope Hamilton has a follow-up pending to go deeper into the themes he raises herein.

On a similar but not completely identical theme:
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