Where Was God?

Is it possible to acknowledge the presence and sovereignty of God in all of life without portraying God’s love as conditional, or by characterizing God’s love as disciplinary and character-building?  I choose to believe so, contrary to those whose God-image seems to require a characterization of God as judgmental, vengeful, and harsh, an image conceded as an only means of affirming God’s total involvement in all of human affairs, an image that seems to be a less thoughtful, yet more acceptable way of explaining life’s anomalies.

Recent articles and conversations in which authors and participants have attempted to explain God’s part in life-destroying events of both natural and human origin strengthen my belief that humans are predisposed to explain life’s anomalies in the context of our individual “God programs,” - our beliefs about who God is and how God works.  I believe that our “God programs” are less a matter of divine revelation than a product of our conditioning – what we’ve been taught plus our life experiences – and the very personal needs that our God images fulfill.  The revelation part is a conundrum for me since I cannot intellectually accept the notion that a sovereign God would self-reveal via messages subject to differing interpretations or that the “true” message would be delivered to a select and limited audience.

Could it be that the God many of us worship is a creation of our minds that satisfies our need to explain why bad things happen to good people?  This, of course, after we’ve defined the meanings of “bad” and “good” in terms that satisfy our needs.

If we believe that God is “out there somewhere, sitting in divine judgment on those who obey or disobey his rules,” a life event that results in indiscriminate destruction of things of value to human beings, including human life, can be an example of God’s harsh and unrelenting judgment.  Or, if we believe that God is pure spirit, the essence of all creation, the same disaster may be evidence of a system designed and put in place by a master designer, neutral in its application and effect.  Both of these scenarios beg the question of an all powerful creator who loves and cares for the creation, each suggesting a different answer.

To suggest that God is present in the human response to the disaster, evidenced by those who comfort and care for its victims, but not in the forces that caused the disaster, says that the disaster itself is the act of an un-Godly force, an evil force whose purpose is to destroy life.  It also suggests that God’s power is limited to responding to the effects of the evil force.  Or that God chooses, for whatever reason, to allow the disaster to happen regardless of its consequences.  Or that God mandates all natural events according to a grand scheme of life with specific purpose that can be known only by God, yet subject to continuing speculation by humans.

I would suggest that our God images, though enabling us to reconcile disparate understandings of God’s involvement or non-involvement in the vicissitudes of life, are of little value beyond that.  Finite humans are not equipped to correctly define the nature, character, and intent of a creator having infinite attributes, regardless of origin and application of a particular theology.  Our feeble attempts to define are influenced by our ego needs, and we assign God to humanly constructed boxes customized for our personal use.

I was raised to understand God as loving, caring, and personal.  I cannot attribute a life-destroying disaster to such a God unless I acknowledge God as a presence in all of life, no matter how I perceive the effects of this presence.  Further, that I acknowledge the existence of a stable system in which divine favoritism is shown toward none, where it rains on the just and the unjust alike, one that does not allow me to interpret God’s love in terms of good things happening to me and mine, or as corrective and character-building discipline. 

Regardless of what happens to me or to others, I can still affirm God as loving if I choose to believe that a creation, in all its dimensions, is inherently cared for, loved, by its creator.  I can also choose to deny the reality of such a caring creator, but only as I deny this creator’s provision of all that is required to sustain the creation, not in human terms, but by the creator’s terms.  The provision is there for me to experience and to share, and is sufficient evidence for me that there is a creator and that the creator cares … for something far greater than me and my limited  interests.  It is not necessary for me to appropriate this God for personal use.  And if I care, I must relate to the creation in ways that support the creator’s sustaining intention, suppressing selfish intent to the best of my ability.

Was God present in the disaster at (fill in the blank)?  My answer is “yes,” in its every dimension.  Did God cause it?  Only in the sense that God created a system within which it could happen.  Does God care about the people affected by it?  Yes, but God does not deny them the choice of where they will live or how they will conduct their lives, nor intercede to save them from the consequences of their choices.  If we choose to think otherwise, are we not scapegoating our God to satisfy our own needs and interests?

Perhaps you see it differently.  Please share … for the sake of further enlightenment.

Love it, or Leave it?

“If you’re so at odds with traditional Christian theology, why don’t you just plug in somewhere else?” a friend recently asked. 

Well, it would be a bit like divorce from a lifelong mate.  As with a long standing marriage, there’ve been ups and downs, but it’s been a very loving relationship, and if I left it, I really don’t know what I could find to replace it.  But, most important for me is the call I feel to be instrumental in helping the church rediscover its faith roots, planted in the example and teachings of the one it proclaims as Lord.  Beyond that, I’m not persuaded that 21st Century Christianity, in all its varied iterations, authentically and fully expresses the theology of Jesus. 

For most of my adult life I have been trying to clarify and reconcile my spirituality with understandings passed on to me by my parents and other teachers within my traditional Christian faith community.  This has become increasingly difficult as my own life experiences have confronted me with an irresolvable conflict between what I was taught and what I can accept as valid for me.  My church has not encouraged me in my need to pursue a more expansive world view that helps me to see more completely my interdependent relationship with all of humankind.  I have remained in my faith community with the hope that I might be a guiding light to others who express openness to more expansive understandings of life, unconstrained by sectarian dogma and traditional faith perspectives, striving to be agents of reconciliation in a destructively divided world.  I have justified my chosen role from a personal perspective of the function of and continuing need for reformation within the church, and an evolving spirituality within myself and my faith community.  

The closest thing I can find from Jesus that might serve as a litmus test for Christian discipleship would be the practice of servanthood as spoken of in Matthew 25, and loving neighbor without reservation (Golden Rule living), which I understand is affirmed in somewhat similar expression by virtually all major world faiths.  Although certain Biblical references may seem to suggest otherwise, I do not perceive Jesus as prescribing a particular belief system or identifying himself as the antidote to an eternal existence of relentless suffering in a state of separation from God.  I see him as the premier characterization of the wholeness within which all humankind can indeed experience shalom peace, and so I seek to become like him to the extent that I am able to transcend my human frailties.

I do not believe it is possible for me to truly love my neighbor and view my neighbor’s experience of God, however defined, as insufficient or invalid.  The United Methodist mission to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” suggests that Christian discipleship is the antidote to the human condition, and that my task as a Christian is to persuade my neighbor to become a Christian disciple, and thus also an agent of transformation in the world.  There seems to be at least a suggestion here that other historic faith communities do not have the capacity to be agents of love, peace, and reconciliation, to live with concern for neighbor at least equal to concern for self.  As I learn more about other faiths, I have to reject this notion.

I have come to believe that spiritual maturity is not the attainment of certainty about anything, rather the realization that there are no final answers for humans and that maturity is better reflected in the search, the questions, the recognition that things eternal cannot be packaged in a doctrine, a book, or a theological treatise.  It seems to me that attempts to package can be a form of idolatry, lead to spiritual arrogance and bigotry, and are not inherently a means to Grace or a coming Kingdom of God in human hearts.  Finding the freedoms that exist beyond the bindings requires a conscious and intentional effort to put behind us beliefs that fall short of serving humanity well, acknowledge our interdependence and mutuality, and live as though our lives and the survival of our world depend on it.

In my still forming view, western Christianity’s capacity for transformation has been severely compromised by its cohabitation with secular culture, with the Christian community dependent on secular culture for its survival, and secular culture appropriating Christianity for its utility.  Despite dissenting voices within the church, some mercilessly quieted, the bond seems to have strengthened over the centuries.  But this identifies even more clearly for me my task to be an agent of change.

And so, as long as I can be a positive influence for change within my spiritual community that enables people to minimize their separation from their creator, my pilgrimage with them will continue.

Do you have a similar story?  If so, I hope you’ll share it.

Changing Our Defaults

Nothing I do, say, or think during my time on Earth has any bearing on the residence of my soul beyond this life.  Some folk in my faith family will have a problem with that statement, rejecting it outright as faithless, even blasphemous.  And I willingly acknowledge their perspective as valid – for them.  But it’s the marker of the moment on my spiritual journey, a journey I perceive as having no destination, more like a path of my making, beginning and ending in eternity, all relative terms that would have no meaning for me were I not a reasoning being. 

That said, I believe the way I live my earthly life does have great significance for my human family and for all of creation as I experience it, and for me that’s all that really matters.  I believe that if my life fits into some cosmic plan in the mind of the creator, it is that I live my life in harmony with the rhythms of the created order – with my environment, my human family, all that is within the scope of my senses, and beyond.  My failure to do that may be likened to singing off key in an otherwise harmonious choir.  Or tearing the fabric of an otherwise unblemished tapestry.  Since peaceful coexistence seems to be incompatible with our need for cultural comforts and a sense of rightness, we have, by default, embraced a humanly imposed norm of disharmony and discord; the tapestry is shredded and we seem to be resigned to a shredded, chaotic existence that can only be salvaged and once again made whole by an interventional cosmic fixer.  I believe we have the capacity to restore the tapestry to wholeness, and we have larger than life coaches and time-honored play books to guide us toward that objective. 

We begin with ourselves – adjusting our functional settings, changing our defaults, not at someone else’s insistence, but by our own initiative as we become convinced that we are not islands and that we live in relationship where the well-being of the whole is more desirable than that of any single part.  It’s hard to do when ideological and spiritual scratch marks run deep.  One of those may relate to our attitudes about our God, the one we learned about in early religious instruction, the one who sets the standard for the way we relate to each other and to our environment, the one we may perceive as dictating the terms of our existence.  This may be the same God we affirm (and worship) as Spirit – a comforting presence, loving, forgiving, accepting, gracious – yet condemning, judging, and punishing, having the capacity – and the will – to assign an unruly, rebellious child to an eternity of immeasurable suffering.

On that note, may I propose that our concepts of life beyond human death are human constructs that fulfill our need for reward for ourselves and punishment for others we perceive as undeserving of Divine blessing.  Evil is seen as pervasive and unconquerable, therefore necessitating Divine intercessory action lest we all spend eternity in a cosmic torture chamber.  Concepts of reward and punishment also satisfy our need to define reality in relative opposites, i.e., right and wrong, black and white, up and down, beautiful and ugly, tall and short, etc.  Perhaps such descriptors are not of God.  Perhaps no human descriptors are suitable for God.  Perhaps we have appropriated and adapted God to fit the limits of our own human understandings and our need for a framework within which we can explain the “why” of our existence.  Does God need us?  Do we need God?  To whom are we accountable beyond ourselves?  Perhaps to those for whom we can be lights in the darkness of their lives, and to those who can either bloom or wilt because of us.

How do I find the road to recovery and wholeness, not just for myself, but for my world?  I’m speaking of a condition beyond the natural restorative and regenerative processes of nature that will prevail with or without my contribution.  How do I align myself with forces and influences that bring wholeness to my human family?  How do I learn to sing in harmony with the cosmic choir?  How do I align my thoughts and actions to enhance the beauty of the tapestry?  And do I find answers outside myself, or do I go within to a God whose creative artistry is manifested in me and whose eyes mine can be? 

Food for thought for this day … and many yet to experience.