MCJ: IN OUR IMAGE, AFTER OUR LIKENESS

Posted by Christopher Johnson at Midwest Conservative Journal:

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Liberal Episocopalians have a problem. Merely telling somebody to support some cause or other "because it's the right thing to do" or because it's a question of "justice" is not all that effective. Mainly because of the all-too-frequent response of "Says who? You? Who are you?"

However if you can invoke God or Jesus, you're on much stronger ground. You can urge support for the Millennium Development Goals[peace and blessings be upon them] not because you think they're a good idea but because God Himself does.

You might even be able to quote a prophet or two to back up your position that God thinks that letting the poor go hungry is a really bad idea. Maybe you can even work Jesus Himself in. The great unwashed out there in the pews, the rabble who haven't been to a seminary, are very impressed by that sort of thing.

But that course of action carries its own risks. Thing is, if you spend too much time in That Book, you discover that God, the same God that created the heavens and the earth, thinks a lot of other things are really bad ideas. Having sexual intercourse with people of the same sex, for example.

Granted, the God in that book is ready and eager to forgive you when you fall short. But God expects a certain level of conduct from you and expects you to repent when you don't live up to His expectations. And as Jesus reminded us, God's expectations are strict; you can't just commit adultery with certain parts of your body. You can commit it with your eyes and your mind.

What to do about all this? Well, you can go the fundie route and emphasize that this or that is a sin that you shouldn't ever do but which Christ paid for on the Cross. But a certain class of person just hates being told that the stuff they enjoy doing is evil and shouldn't be engaged in, Christ or no Christ.

How do you reconcile the fact that the God who created the universe would really rather you didn't get drunk every single night and/or boink that hot woman at church who keeps smiling suggestively at you across the aisle and you really get a kick out of doing both? Easy. You invent a deity who can't get in your way:

During further studies, I discovered an alternative explanation of continued suffering in the face of persistent, collective, godly prayer. Some contemporary Christian theologians, disproportionately Anglican, propose that traditional ideas about God's omnipotence are incorrect. Perhaps in creating the cosmos, God lost (or never had) the power to do anything at any time. God must therefore rely upon human cooperation to accomplish God's purposes on earth. God abhors evil and suffering, but both persist, even after we persevere in collective prayer, because you and I fail to act as God's hands, feet, and voice.

Think about the mind-blowing absurdity of all that for a moment. "Perhaps in creating the cosmos, God lost (or never had) the power to do anything at any time." In other words, God created everything that is but has REALLY let Himself go lately.

And I don't know about you but I find nothing attractive in a deity who "must rely upon human cooperation to accomplish" his purposes. What in the world is the point of worshipping a deity who can't actually do anything?

Attracted to this new understanding of God, I did some research. Only two Bible verses explicitly speak of God's omnipotence denoting a God for whom nothing was impossible. In Luke 1:37, Mary responds to the angel’s annunciation of her imminent pregnancy by saying, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Matthew’s gospel reports Jesus saying, “All things are possible with God” (19:26). Like most Christians, I am very skeptical of placing too much emphasis on just a couple of Bible verses. Perhaps both passages reflect a first century cultural and scientific worldview rather than timeless theological insight. I also found that the widespread practice of addressing God as the Almighty might not be a theological statement. Biblical scholars have concluded that ancient Israelites appropriated the term God Almighty, or in Hebrew El Shaddai, from their Mesopotamian neighbors. The Hebrews seem to have used the term to emphasize their monotheism rather than God's omnipotence.

George Clifford, the author of this article is a retired Episcopal priest in North Carolina and served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years. This does not speak well of Episcopal education. Because anyone who can make such an idiotic claim either has never read a Bible or stopped seriously believing anything it says.

Let's start in Genesis, George. God created the universe, the sun, the moon, the Earth and all living things upon it. Can you create a universe, George? So once again, either God is slipping badly or George Clifford refuses to see what is right in front of his face.

In this post-Christian era, the Church must bravely and honestly admit points at which traditional conceptions of its faith no longer make sense.

Told you. George Clifford, like so many in the Episcopal Organization, no longer seriously believes much of anything.

We do exactly what the Bible seems to tell us to do. We pray. We pray with one another. We pray according to the mind of Christ.

Do "we," George? You're being mighty presumptuous there. Not every man that sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord and all that.

Yet God does not always grant our requests. Not squarely acknowledging these difficulties leads us down the path of Benny Hinn, not of Christ Jesus. Too often, I have heard well-meaning but ignorant Christians tell those who grieve that God did not or will not heal a loved one because God respects human freedom. These words hurt rather than comfort. Dishonest or disingenuous answers to faith’s difficulties only push true seekers further from God.

Admitting that we don't understand how or why the universe works the way it does or that the Creator of all this doesn't owe us anything at all, never mind an explanation, is neither dishonest nor disingenuous. It's realistic.

Read Job some time, George. Read Psalm 88. Read Isaiah 43. Find me one passage of Scripture that guarantees anyone at all a long, healthy and happy life, dying in their sleep surrounded by their large, loving and well-adjusted family and a seat next to Christ in heaven. Or better yet, just admit that your real religion is.

A power exists that changes lives, a power that turns bread and wine into an encounter with absolute love incarnated in human community, a power that transforms despair into hope, defeat into victory, weakness into strength. When our puny human minds believe that we have successfully packaged that power into a well-conceptualized God, such as the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God of Christian orthodoxy, we invariably even if unintentionally imagine an idol.

What do you call worshipping a god who can't actually affect the world one way or the other? Darn right you do. So I guess we can label Clifford's theological outlook Neo-Idolatry.

The controversy currently convulsing the Anglican Communion is the living God shattering one such idol as God's people discover that God does not respect gender orientation any more than God respects race, nationality, or gender.

Why is that, George? Why are you certain that God wants us to give pointy hats to unrepentant sinners when He can't seem to do anything else? Because the Episcopal Organization voted that way?

Oh my Vague, Powerless Wuss Of A Deity Concept. In all its recorded history, the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches or any other Christian body have never EVER taken as radical a one-true-church stance as that.

Lest you think this sort of Spongian crypto-atheism is restricted to George, I refer you back to what Mrs. Schori had to say the other day:

As Election Day approaches, I want to remind you that our democracy gives us the opportunity to speak urgently about the many issues and challenges confronting our nation and the world. I would encourage every eligible voter to prayerfully consider the choices before us and commit to using the political process to seek solutions to our society’s most intractable problems. As part of our baptismal vows we commit “to strive for justice and peace among all people” and “respect the dignity of every human being.” As you prepare to vote, I urge you to consider how the Reign of God – a just society – particularly as explicated by the Hebrew prophets and by Jesus, can be made real in our own day.

Our baptismal ministry calls us to transform our communities into something that looks more like that Reign of God. That is our part in God’s mission. We are sent and commissioned to build a society where all have adequate access to health care, where the weakest are protected and God’s creation safeguarded, and where each person has access to the blessings of life. That work requires committed engagement in the civic life of our nation if we seek to make God’s dream more effectively real and complete in this world.

A deity who can't seem to do anything except take orders from a bunch of secular human leftists is not a deity anyone ought to waste any time on. And if people like George Clifford and Katharine Jefferts Schori had any integrity at all, they'd admit it and end the charade.