‘A more Christlike God’ – 2
Chapter 2 – Un-Christlike Images of God
We have a habit of forming God in our own image. What we absorb from our parents, our education, our culture, our church (if any) all goes into the mix.
Who is to say that the ‘God’ of North American Baptists is, or is not, the same ‘God’ of the local religion in, say, Afghanistan or India?
What is God?
‘Your idea of God may be no more than an exaggerated version of yourself.’
Since we have such a sketchy understanding of ourselves, how can we expect to understand our Creator?
St. Gregory the Theologian: it is impossible to define, express, or conceive God. We can only experience him.
Projections and Reflections
‘The great peril is that we worship ourselves via an image of God we create out of our own temperament. Then, easily enough, we find scriptures to establish our image as ‘biblical’!’
To be specific: Christians have their different versions of Jesus:
‘So we have Prozac Jesus versus cage-fighter Jesus; hippy Jesus versus Rambo Jesus; American Idol Jesus versus United Nations Jesus.’
Or, we base our image of Jesus on one of our 20th-century heroes:
‘Gandhi Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr. Jesus, John Lennon Jesus and Ronald Reagan Jesus.’
Or, yet again, on any of a number of actors who have played Jesus:
‘Max von Sydow (1965)? Ted Neeley (1973)? Jim Caviezel (2004)? Or Diogo Morgado (2013)? Ewan McGregor (2015)?’
On a bigger scale, we create a Jesus who reflects our nation’s character and ideals. The God of the US is obsessed with freedom and capitalism, whereas the Canadian God is more enthusiastic about tolerance and the common good. In China he is dedicated to harmony and honour.
Cleansing the palate
So, are the New Atheists right after all? Is religion, in all its shapes and forms, is no more than a projection of our selves?
We can begin by recognising ‘our vulnerability to worn out superstitions and hidden agendas’; by identifying some of the common un-Christlike images.
God the doting grandfather
It is not difficult to find Scripture references to support the idea of a God whose job it is to serve my beck and call – Psa 37:4; Mt 7:7; 21:22.
Are we not promised divine protection (Psa 91:10)? Will not the sick be healed in response to the prayer of faith (James 5)? Cannot a mustard seed of faith move mountains?
The formula seems fine as long as it works:
‘Until it doesn’t. Until tragedy strikes. Until a person or family or local church you care about unravels, implodes or dies. Until a friend is abducted and abused. Until another falls off the wagon and overdoses. Until another’s life is permanently altered by a car accident or incurable disease. As strokes and cancers, mental illness and suicide, earthquakes or tsunamis have their day and do their worst. Until you yourself do your worst, harm others and would rather die than face it. Until the God who hears doesn’t answer and the God who ‘saves’ doesn’t rescue. Until you realize that God, in fact, allows absolutely anything—every kind of evil and depth of suffering.’
What then? We may lose our faith, or, at least, have our illusions shattered.
But God is not a genie in the lamp, whose job it is to obey all our commands.
But the solution is not to veer to the other extreme in passivity and fatalism.
We need to be reminded of God’s loving, fatherly discipline (Heb 12:5-9).
There is truth in the prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr:
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
There may be helpfulness in contemplative prayer, in which nothing is asked of God.
But we need to allow ourselves to be disappointed, surrendering to the supernatural love of God. We can learn to trust him, whether the outcome is glorious or disappointing.
Petition, contemplation, and surrender all have a place in deposing the doting grandfather.
God the deadbeat dad
AKA ‘the abesentee landlord’.
This God may be a projection of real-life abandonment or neglect by a parent.
To many, God seems distant, absent, silent.
Today, there are ministries that seek to bring the love of God to those suffering from an ‘orphan spirit’:
‘Think of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters organization, and the many mentoring and spiritual direction networks. Then there are the many sports coaches and clubs leaders who volunteer to invest in our youth. Think of the thousands of parents who adopt children, but also the host of adoptees on a quest to search out their birth-parents. Behind all of this, I believe, is a deeper spiritual thirst to know God as Mother or Father. Thankfully, God seems committed to reciprocating, mediating his love through the examples above, but also directly in this ‘Father’s Heart’ season of Christianity.’
And then there is a minstry of prayer, which helps people re-connect with God, asking him to show the causes of their unhappiness and sense of being abandoned, and to make himself known to them in a fresh way (cf. Eph 3:14-19).
God the punitive judge
Many who are striving to be ‘good enough for God’, experience him as a punitive judge, meticulous micro-manager, or harsh taskmaster. This concept of God is still popular among both religious and atheistic fundamentalists. The utility of such a concept is that it can be used to bludgeon both those on the left and on the right. It entails
- a culture of praise and blame
- an emphasis on God’s condemnation of sin
- frequent preaching of hell-fire and brimstone and shrill calls to repentance
- an exhortation to meticulous self-examination before Holy Communion, lest one eats and drinks damnation on oneself
- a keen sense of inclusion and exclusion, of ‘us’ and ‘them’
- a urgency about final judgement, about the danger of being ‘left behind’ or of ‘losing one’s first love’.
Personal consequences include:
- being tormented by unresolved guilt
- internal voices that say ‘You’re a bad person’
- self-harm
- feeling that you do not measure up, or that you’re ‘not good enough’
- strugglling with shame
- fearfulness about final judgement
- a feeling that when bad things happen, God is punishing you, and when good things happen, he is reward you
All of the above are associated with evangelical revivalism.
It would seem that:
‘hatred of sin and self- hatred and hatred of the sinner are a very thin line, aren’t they?’
This approach tells us of a God who is very angry. One day, he will run out of patience, the opportunity for repentance will be no more, and in his wrath God will sweep away the wicked.
This is the God who was preached in Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon ‘Sinners in the hands and an angry God’ and countless other revivalist messages.
But does this God sound like Jesus of Nazareth? –
‘I know some reference such wrath to the Jesus of John’s Revelation. But remember Jesus of Nazareth, who dined with sinners, welcomed prostitutes and tax collectors, advocated for the adulteress and restored the disqualified. I never see him spouting hatred against the sinner or using the Law to accuse and condemn. Rather, when he preached, “Repent,” it was embedded in this message: “The Kingdom of God is at hand! Repent and believe the Good News!” The only time I see him point the rebuking finger is at the oppressive religiosity of the first century revivalists!’
And Jesus’ response to sinners is never condemnation, but invitation. In the words of Pope Francis:
‘One word should suffice this evening that is the Cross itself. The Cross is the word through which God has responded to evil in the world …a word which is love, mercy, forgiveness. It also reveals a judgment. Namely, that God, in judging us, loves us. Let us remember this: God judges us by loving us. If I embrace his love then I am saved. If I refuse it, then I am condemned, not by him, but by my own self, because God never condemns, he only loves and saves.’ (My emphasis)
This is a true echo of Jn 3:16f.
The Santa Claus blend
This is a blend of all three previous examples.
The Santa Claus God keeps a meticulous record of the bad and the good we have done. Rewards will be conferred or withled accordingly.
On the other hand, Santa Clause is like a doting grandparent to whom we can submit our wish-list and treats and goodies. ‘Ask anything in my name, and I will do it’ (Jn 14:13f).
And Santa lives far away and only visit once a year. How different from Jesus, who says, ‘I am with you always’. And yet we have been taught to believe in a God who lives in heaven, ‘above the bright blue sky’.
The Jesus of the Gospels
The answer to all of these misconceptions is the same – Jesus, the true image of God. He never appears as a doting grandfather, a punishing judge, a deadbeat dad, or Santa Claus. He does appear, among other things, as the Restorer of lives:
‘Jesus is the One who sat by the well and restored the Samaritan woman to her place in her community. He restored Zacchaeus’ integrity and offered him friendship. He saved and restored the woman caught in adultery to morality and life. He restored the paralytics, the blind and the deaf to wholeness. He restored outcasts such as lepers and the bleeding woman. He restored the sanity of the demonized. Even harshest rebukes were offers of restoration to the unrepentant. When we see Jesus in action, we are seeing the true heart of God, the Restorer of lives.’
*****
I found much that was helpful in this chapter. It’s good to have our palates cleansed in this way.
It’s not an original approach, of course. Over sixty years ago J.B. Phillips did something similar in ‘Your God Is Too Small’, and, more recently, so did John Stott in ‘The Contemporary Christian’.
But once again I have to ask: Who is Jersak gunning for here? In particular, who are these fire-and-brimstone revivalists who are obsessed with sin and judgement. They may exist, but after 70 years spent mainly in Methodist, Brethren and Anglican circles here in the UK, I’ve yet to see or hear one. Perhaps the situation where Jersak comes from is very different. But what of America’s best-known revivalist preacher of the past century, Billy Graham? Was he one of these detestable hell-fire preachers? I don’t think so. And then there is that tired cliche about Jonathan Edwards and his sermon ‘Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God’. Is there no more that can be said about that great and good man? What love he had for Christ and for his people!
The truth of the matter is, is that if we accept Jersak’s account of these false Christs (and, by and large, I do), then I wait with interest to find out what he has against the Christ of Billy Graham, John Stott, Tim Keller, and a host of other evangelicals.
And I waith with interest to discover what Christ Jersak has in mind for us.