Writing a volume on the parables can’t be easy; any would-be author and interpreter must navigate webs of varying interpretation, wrestle with laconic sayings, be confronted with surprising, strange, and sometimes uncomfortable ideas, and, of course, offer an interpretation on some of the most sublime and beloved images of the Bible. Add to that the challenge that comes with stories that can become all too familiar and rote for churchgoers. The late Robert Farrar Capon, then, had his work cut out for him as he sought to present readers with a fresh and adventurous take on the parables. Throughout the book, Capon aims at knocking down old, calcified notions of what the parables mean and highlighting, circling, and underlining their proclamations of radical grace. 

To give a brief overview, Capon arranges his treatment of the parables in line with the title of the work: first, parables about the kingdom, then parables of grace, then parables of judgment. Interspersed throughout are excursuses, epilogues, and introductions to drive home his points. Beloved for his wit, charm, and warmth, Capon doesn’t write in a technical style—you won’t find any footnotes or rigorous citations—but a rhapsodic one.  

First, the good. Capon’s warmth and wit are evident from the very beginning. You won’t find his work dry or stale in the least. He also has a number of good ideas and memorable ways of saying things. Many of them, like God’s preference for grace over coercion, God’s attention to “the last, the least, the lost, the little, and the dead,” the motif of death and resurrection, the insistence on grace and joviality over legalistic scrupulosity, and the seemingly unfair insistence on offering grace to the undeserving all resonate well with Lutheran audiences and act as a corrective to “plausible” (in Capon’s words) schemes of works righteousness which come so naturally to fallen man. In his time and context, one could understand and appreciate how many souls were thirsting for the gospel that was so often dispensed in trickles, with all sorts of conditions, qualifiers, and fine print attached.  

There are some significant flaws, however, in his theology, his hermeneutics, and his stance toward the church.  

Theologically, his Christology is poor. Seeming to deny the genus maiestaticum (“there is not a smidge of deity in his manhood,” any more than there is in yours or mine” (33)), he insists that Jesus had two minds, and that his human mind (again, unperfected by the communication of attributes) didn’t quite grasp his messianic mission until after the feeding of the five thousand, after which he had “second thoughts” (20). This allows Capon to imagine that Jesus’ later parables were more refined than his earlier ones. 

Capon also flirts with universalism, gesturing repeatedly toward the possibility that those in hell may choose, finally, to laugh it off and join the party. “But if he is God the Word who both makes and reconciles us, there is no way–literally no way in hell–that we will ever find ourselves anywhere else than in the very thick of both our creation and reconciliation” (71). Even when he does speak of hell, he attempts to hold open a door to heaven. “But the very hell of hell lies precisely in the fact that its inhabitants will be insisting on a perpetual rejection of an equally perpetual gift. It will be an eternal struggle to escape from the grip of a love that will never let them go” (117). 

A reader might come to the conclusion that Capon has a low view of sanctification. Rather than letting Scripture’s moral injunctions to stand, Capon pits the “sovereignty of grace” against them, rolling them flat and discounting them as mechanisms of works righteousness, saying “We don’t need even another minute’s worth of sermons about good works.” (215) In the end, he quotes Galatians 3:21-22 to try to prove that the law is useless since it couldn’t save. Capon, however, sets before us a false dilemma; we use not law or gospel but law and gospel.  

Capon didn’t seem to care much for proper theology, stating that “theology… has yet to save anybody.” (24). He doesn’t seem to care much for hermeneutical rigor either: “Whether that sort of commentary is exegesis, eisegesis, both, or neither, I don’t know and I don’t care.” (242) In the Parable of the Weeds, he attempts to get inside Jesus’ thoughts and play Jesus’ warning of judgment off as a “dog biscuit” (109) that his hearers wanted to hear, rather than something Jesus cared to say of his own volition. In sum, Capon does his theology first and then his exegesis, a fault made dangerous by his unorthodox views. 

Lastly, Capon seems to have an unhealthy cynicism toward the church. To be sure, churches have made their fair share of mistakes, and Christians need to publicly recognize and identify these issues. But there seems to be more going on as Capon calls excommunication a “favorite indoor sport” (128) of churches and flatly denying that the church welcomes sinners (128). He seems to caricature those who aren’t fully on board with his ideas of radical grace. Anyone who insists on church discipline (128-129), final judgment, and justice (cf. chapter eight, “The Weeds”), or even that a serial adulterer should stop committing adultery (486), simply, in his estimation, doesn’t understand grace. In fact, some of his interpretations are so novel that he will dismiss previous interpretations, saying that “Many Christians, for most of church history, have missed his point completely” (61). 

Ultimately, my critique of Capon isn’t that he has nothing worthwhile to say. Indeed, many of his well-worded sentences about vital themes in the Bible stick wonderfully in the mind. My critique is that he presses the point too far. In discussing God’s preference for grace over coercion, he seems not to acknowledge the times when God does indeed intervene with force (the plagues in Egypt, the conquest of Canaan, the exile, Ananias and Saphira, et al.). In preaching radical grace, he fails to see how law and gospel interact, and has the gospel not only predominate, but dominate any other interpretations or meanings. Just as overcooking a steak will ruin it, and just as driving a screw in too far will tear out the wood fibers that hold it in place, so Capon pushes his theological conclusions too far, and in doing so, undermines what otherwise would be a wonderful, edifying book.