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No, Kolo. The spin is in how Protestant beliefs are being characterized.

Jonathan Edward's sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God most certainly did emphasize aspects of God's character. It was only by His mercy that they were not thrown into the fire like a spider whose web is stretched over the top of a flame .

People look at God in too cavalier of a manner. God is good. God is love. God is our buddy. God just wants to send us sunshine and roses every day. In reality, the biblical God is more complex.

He is never, "not good". But he does display anger, violence, and jealousy.

I am amazed at the opinions I am seeing stated here on this thread. They are very far from the God of Scripture.

One statement you made confuses me "Theism is a particularly dangerous heresy." What do you mean by this?

"It was only by His mercy that they were not thrown into the fire like a spider whose web is stretched over the top of a flame ."

Isn't that a marvelous image! :)

One statement you made confuses me "Theism is a particularly dangerous heresy." What do you mean by this?

I mean that the idea that God is completely detached from creation, so much so that He is thoroughly impassible, is virtually the antithesis of what I think all of us here believe to a greater or lesser extent which is to say that our God is personal and connected directly to each of us in an active manner. Now where we part company is in how we view that connection or connections. Put in a very, very bad way, we differ on what we determine to be God's "motivation" for what we observe of His actions in creation. As for Theism, well, it is a dangerous heresy for precisely the reasons +Justin Martyr points out.

"He is never, "not good". But he does display anger, violence, and jealousy."

Well, we perceive him to be displaying anger, violence and jealousy. I'll agree with that.

"People look at God in too cavalier of a manner. God is good. God is love. God is our buddy. God just wants to send us sunshine and roses every day. In reality, the biblical God is more complex."

I agree with everything you say and I share your concern, however.... God is Love; God does send us "sunshine" everyday in the form of the grace to conform ourselves to Himself, to gain some similitude to Christ. But you and I both know that that isn't what many people believe is the purpose of God. They believe that we are supposed to "fulfill ourselves", "be true to ourselves", "express ourselves" and because God does indeed love us, that's what God "wants" for each of us. The results of this mentality are all around us in the wreckage of Western society. God created us for Himself and He created us in His image and likeness. Orthodoxy has always taught that Adam and Eve were created not perfect, not in a state of complete theosis, but rather as "infants" with that potential. Through the Fall that potential was lost and it was restored by the Incarnation. What was given to us was a second chance to fulfill our created purpose, which is to become like God. In order to do that we don't follow our own desires, but rather indeed die to those desires and live only according to God. By following our own desires, we necessarily reject God and far from becoming like Him, we become more and more lost until we reach a point where we curse God Who only loves us. In fact, that divine love, which is paradise for those who have arrived at a similitide of Christ, is a tormenting fire which burns those who have rejected Him. In the end, that torment isn't a result of God's imagined wrath, but rather a result of our own sinful rejection of God.