MG: Me selective? Haven’t you heard this is the definitive interpretation of Jesus? 

Seriously, every reading of Jesus is selective. That is, we cannot in any one book or series of books mine the universal character of Jesus Christ. We’ve each been given a gift of seeing something clearly about Jesus, and those who are writers, teachers, preachers, are called to share with others that vision. That vision is not infallible, and is subject to critique and evaluation.  

That being said, I could have made the same argument from any of the Gospels, or from using all four. I limited it to Mark for pedagogical reasons. In doing so, I had to leave out some pretty choice passages from other Gospels: Jesus yelling at the Pharisees (Mt. 23), Jesus’ discussion of the coming judgment (John 5:19-24), and so forth. 

So it is a selective reading in the sense that I’m highlighting one aspect of Jesus’ character. But it seems to pervade the Gospels. 

I-L: Where else in the New Testament, besides the gospels, do we see the presentation of a mean and wild Jesus?

MG: Well, you certainly see it in the life and teachings of Paul—like Jesus, he has very little patience with legalists (note the opening of the Galatians). Certainly James is not afraid of getting tough with his readers. You find rather startling and harsh passages on judgment in Peter, and if the Book of Revelation doesn’t fill one with proper fear of the Lord, I don’t know what will.

I-L: The common perception among many is that the God of the Old Testament is one of judgment, justice and harshness while the God of the New Testament, particularly as it is embodied in Jesus, is one of mercy and grace. How would you respond to this bifurcated depiction of deity? 

MG: One thing I am showing in my book is that the so-called Old Testament God of justice has visited us in Jesus Christ. In another book, I could just as easily show that the so-called merciful Jesus of the New Testament is merely an incarnation of the gracious God of Israel.  The point is that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of Yahweh, “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God” (Nicene Creed). There is no difference between the God of the Old and New Testaments. Granted, there may be different emphases, but there is too much justice and mercy in both to not notice the “family resemblance.”

I-L: What are some of the practical outcomes to following a Jesus who isn't "nice"?

MG: The knowledge that we’re following someone who deeply loves us. As I said, niceness is mostly about keeping the peace. We need more than that. We need grace—deep acceptance despite our flaws, sins, weaknesses. And we need an accountability that is grounded in that grace, to sometimes gently and sometimes firmly prod us into deeper discipleship. Niceness is content with leaving the other as he is. Jesus’ grace is about transforming us into his image—for us that means becoming a new creation, a perfect, fulfilled, complete, loving human being.

I-L: You encourage us in your book to emulate the mean and wild Jesus. What are some of the particulars you would like to see us practicing?

MG: It means being willing to tell the truth to other Christians and to our culture. And it means having the freedom to be righteously angry at times. We are afraid of doing either these days. But we can’t be full-orbed followers of Jesus unless we do both.

That being said, I always want to add two things. First, we have to earn the right to tell the truth and to be angry. Jesus served people day in and day out, from sunrise to sunset. When he did get angry, people interpreted it as the anger of a parent, something that arises out of deep concern. A lot of Christians are right to be angry about so much that goes on in our culture, but because they haven’t demonstrated sacrificial caring, their pronouncements come across as mere judgment.

Second, we have to recognize that in most instances, grace, patience, and forbearance are what’s called for. Righteous anger and stern truth-telling can be powerful weapons, but they should be held in reserve for only special moments.

I-L: How does this view of Jesus influence or inform people like Christian pacifists or Christians who are concerned about war?

MG: I would think that they need to be telling the truth boldly and even sternly. I don’t happen to agree with pacifists, but they believe they have a vision of Jesus that the rest of us need to hear. They are responsible for sharing that vision, and sometimes I assume they’ll have to be bold and maybe even righteously angry about it. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a pacifist, but no one mistook him for a wimp.

I-L: Who would you point to as an example of someone who emulates this lifestyle today?

MG: The people who do it best tend to be on the front lines of ministry. My wife and I work with a transitional housing program in our community that helps people move out of homelessness. The ministry is founded on deep compassion, but it is also characterized by tough love. The staff that work in this ministry full time not only show deep compassion for the homeless, they lay out a pretty tough set of expectations for clients to follow, and they’re not hesitant to hold clients accountable.

Anyone who has worked with desperately needy people—the homeless, drug addicts, and so forth—knows that it takes both compassion and a little meanness and wildness to truly help them.

I-L: How should we go about teaching our children about this mean and wild Jesus?

MG: By modeling it with them as parents. Naturally parents have to be stern as well as understanding to raise a child who knows the full dimension of love.

And then by helping their children learn to discern the difference between selfish anger and righteous anger. That’s something we’re all learning to discern our whole lives, but there’s no reason not to begin to help our children when they are young.

I-L: How can we distinguish genuine righteous indignation from petty personal anger?

MG: It’s pretty hard to do it alone, that’s for sure. One reason I included study questions at the back of my book is that I want to encourage Christians to meet to discuss these things. We need to have friendships or small groups where we can talk about our anger, and let others help us discern when it’s petty and when righteous.

Petty anger is about the self and its wants. But petty anger is often able to disguise itself with religious language that makes it seem like righteous anger. So, in addition to the help of fellow believers, it also takes a ruthless self-honesty and humility.

I didn’t say this would be easy….

I-L: What are some limits you see to righteous anger?

MG: As I noted above, it should be held in reserve for the most pressing of issues. In fact, there are hundreds of issues, personal and cultural, that should make us righteously angry. But we can’t be all-angry, all-the-time. We need to pray for discernment about which issues we’ll address with anger.

And, once again, I can’t say it enough: we have to earn the right to be angry. If we haven’t sacrificially loved the people we’re angry with, it’s probably a good sign that it’s not time to be angry.

I-L: There are a number of fundamentalists like David Cloud and Rick Miesel  who are already pretty mean and wild. How would you respond to this militant form of fundamentalism?

MG: The very framing of the question suggests the answer. These people are known for their anger, not for their love. When Mother Teresa lectured Bill Clinton about abortion at a prayer breakfast back in the 1990s, no one accused her of being a militant fundamentalist or angry Catholic.  She was known for sacrificial love because of her decades of sacrifice for desperate, suffering people. When she did speak a stern word, everyone just assumed she did it out of love.

A lot of angry Christians on the airwaves and on the Internet would be wise to have a moratorium on speaking out, and spend a few years just serving the very people who make them so angry.

I-L: Your book discusses "practical atheism" or the idea that our stated belief in God lacks a practical immediacy for many Christians. How does a mean and wild Jesus keep us from this practical atheism?

MG: He’s always prodding us to deeper discipleship. He loves us so much, he’s not going to let us stay practical atheists. He loves us enough to startle us into something better. He does this often by either bringing or allowing calamity in our lives. Nothing gets me to reconsider my life and faith but suffering. So I consider suffering a gift from God to snap me out of my faithless stupor from time to time.

I-L: What is the role of spiritual disciplines in cultivating the kind of holiness you describe in your book?

MG: They are critical. The Christian life hinges on knowing Jesus, the full-orbed Jesus, both gracious and stern. And the spiritual disciplines are God’s means for helping us to get to know Jesus.

I-L: Many in the Legalist camp have no problem with being mean and wild and presenting Jesus in that light. What can we do to distinguish legalism from genuine spiritual formation?

MG: Again it has to do with what characterizes our lives. The mean and wild is godly only when it is decidedly grounded in mercy. Legalism is the opposite of that. It’s mostly mean and wild, and little bit of grace, and then only for those who toe the line.

Genuine spiritual formation is grounded in grace and mercy and sacrificial service, so that when it’s time to hear or give a stern word, there is no question that it is arises out of love and nothing but love.