It’s not just biblical texts that believers must complain about. It is God himself. Biblical literature is clear on this point: it is connatural to a believer to criticize God. That’s what Moses and the prophets do. That’s what David and his fellow psalmists do. That’s what Job does. That’s what Jesus does from the cross, in the words of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It is right and good and a joyful thing to complain and criticize whenever there is a gap between the truth we associate with God and the facts on the ground.

Truth of redemptive significance is bound to be counterfactual. God, therefore, is bound to be counterfactual. To be sure, the world is full of people who have no need of redemption. They are the wealthy. They will never have a need to criticize God or the way things are.

Many status-quo people call themselves liberals. Others self-identify as conservatives. It doesn’t matter. They have bought into a “live and let die” philosophy. A “live and let die” philosophy is forbidden to the believer in the God of Moses and the believer in the God of Jesus. That does not change the fact that such a philosophy is, beyond an arbitrary circle we draw around ourselves and the ones we care about, the default position of all human beings.

What matters is the context in which complaints and criticism occur. Do I make the criticism because I expect God or scripture to answer my questions and I will not rest until I find my rest in God and his Word? Or because I've decided that God and his Word are something I need to protect myself against, because I've found a higher standard of truth by which to judge them both?

If the latter, I have not ceased to be a believer. I have probably become a truer believer than before, in the strong sense of Eric Hoffer. I simply believe in something other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I simply believe in something other than the God who called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees (Gen 12), endangered and then rescued Isaac (Gen 21), and wrestled with Jacob (Gen 32).

It is also possible for a believer to reject a part of scripture definitively, and still remain a believer. As I remember it – I heard it from Käsemann himself – the great NT exegete Ernst Käsemann once stood up in an official context of his church and argued with great passion on behalf of removing Romans 13 from Scripture. Of course Romans 13 remains a part of Scripture, but no one criticized Käsemann for his speech.

Who would? Everyone knew he had lost his beloved daughter in Argentina in the dark days in which a military junta tortured and “disappeared” their political opponents. Including Käsemann’s daughter.

Put yourself in the professor’s shoes. Walk in his boots. Now read Romans 13. Because he was a believer, I submit, he railed against that text.