by Doug Hammack
How we think about God profoundly affects how we think of the Christian journey. Today we examine the God of Requirements and Rewards, and the God of Love and Justice.
Two Views of God (part 1)
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I have a friend who is a teacher in our city
• He used to be a minister in a well-known denomination
Hit a difficult time in his life that caused him to begin questioning some of the theological certainties of his tradition
• He began to wonder about things he had been taught about God
• Began to wonder about things he had been taught good Christian people were supposed to do
And he began to bring up those doubts/questions to his peers
• And as a result, he was asked to leave the ministry
• And his church encouraged his wife to leave him because in their view, he had gone apostate
As you can imagine, this hurt my friend
• And eventually, he gave up on Christianity
• Gave up on being a Christian minister
• Went into teaching, began to embrace a form of spirituality that could not be called Christian at all
• very reactionary against Christian teachings, Christian thoughts, Christian doctrine
We meet from time to time for coffee. I’ve come to really love this guy.
• Over the course of our friendship, we shared how we both thought about God
• How we both saw the spiritual journey
I think he was shocked that I (a Christian minister) initiated the conversation
• I think he was even more shocked that I didn’t attack him or his non-Christian thoughts
And over the course of our friendship, I have talked to him about my
• My God who loves us, loves us, loves us
• My God, for whom sin/failure are not defining elements of faith
• My spirituality that isn’t about overcoming or resisting sin, but about awakening to the Divine life w/in us
• My God who is less interested in us getting our theology right
• Less interested in us having a doubt-free faith
• And much more interested in us resonating w/ the Life of the Spirit w/in us
I talked to him about my journey of awareness
• About being awakened to the life of the Holy Spirit w/in us
• About being baptized in, immersed in, and permeated w/ the awareness of the Spirit of God w/in us
• For years, we’ve shared our stories and our views of God
And after our friendship was established firmly, he said to me one day…
• Doug, if I had known God as you have described your God, I might have stayed a Christian
• If I had known Jesus as you have described Jesus, I might still be Christian
• If I had known the spiritual journey as you have described the spiritual journey, I might still be Christian
My friend’s disenchantment with, and ultimate dismissal of his faith is entirely understandable
• The god he experienced was a nasty god
• The god for whom he had to suppress his own thoughts/doubts
• The god that insisted he conform to his in-group’s beliefs
• The god that sought to control his mind, control his life, control his behaviors
From the behavior of his people, he gathered that the Christian god was interested in controlling him
• Controlling his actions and thoughts with shame and guilt
• Making him fear punishment if he got his beliefs wrong
• Making him fear punishment if he didn’t conform to their norms
In short, his Deity was a harsh, controlling, task-master-ish, monster
• For his spiritual, mental, and emotional well-being, it was necessary to walk away from his church
Now, I wrote our statement of faith (on our website)
• In it, I say we believe in God, we believe in Jesus, we believe in HS
• And I outline how each of these beliefs awakens us to Life/Light
• I really believe this Christian stuff
But as firmly as I believe these to be central elements of spirituality, I suggest to you that when my friend left the Christian faith…
• He actually furthered his spiritual journey
• He is actually closer to real faith now, because he walked away from the tyrannical, controlling, demanding God of his people
Paradoxically, his agnosticism, his doubts, and his leaving the Christian faith, actually served to advance his spiritual journey
• C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, that doubts and disbelief are an essential part of coming to faith
• Agnosticism (not knowing, uncertainty, wondering)…
• and outright disbelief…
• sometimes become important way-stations on the journey to faith
If we don’t allow ourselves to doubt…
Or if we are disallowed by our in-group to have doubt…
• Then we are constrained to accept someone else’s God, C.S. Lewis says
• If we are not allowed to wonder about our parent’s God, our church’s God, our minister’s God…
• We never come to the place we find God for ourselves, God for our own hearts
The faith journey can actually be squelched if our expectation is this…
• Christian maturity is equated with becoming more and more certain about the things we believe
Many Christians pass through seasons of wondering, periods of doubt
• Deconstruction of things we used to believe is common and not to be feared.
• Sometimes we go through seasons of outright disbelief
Many believe that this part of the spiritual journey is to be discouraged, even disallowed
• Many, unable to escape a season of disbelief felt that their only option was to leave the church
But many great leaders of the Christian faith have experienced and taught us, that it is a normal healthy part of faith development
• Mother Theresa’s biography talks about deep seasons of doubt, and the struggle to believe
• Many believers find themselves disenchanted with their faith walk
Now, to be fully disclosing, even though doubts and dark times can be a normal part of the faith journey…
• They can nevertheless be quite alarming and unnerving
• When we’re in this season, we feel distance from our in-group, our faith-group, and this feels very unsafe
• We feel fearful about where the process will end up
• We wonder what will be left of our faith when we are done
• Some wonder if they’ll even have a faith when they’re done
• And with these questions lurking in the back of our minds…
• And with the pressure of some church groups not to entertain these kinds of thoughts and feelings…
• Many work to suppress these kinds of wonderings
• And, I’m suggesting that we suppress these doubts at the expense of the health and vitality of our faith
If we have suppressed doubt behind the dark corners of our minds and we never give them room to be seen, examined…
• Our faith, our spirituality will be affected by them
• It just won’t be done explicitly
• The doubts, the agnosticism, will remain tacit; under the surface
• Under a safe façade of belief and normalness
• We comply w/ our faith-community’s stated belief system, but we are never honest w/ the disbelief inside ourselves
And this is not a path of true spiritual journeying
• If God is God and if Truth is Truth…
• They can stand up to our doubts
• God is not demoted from being our Creator if we have doubts
I bring this up today, because I want to talk about how doubt and disbelief can help us
• Human beings pick up flawed views of God along the way
• One of the ways we let go of these flawed views…
• One of the ways we make way for a fuller, more complete, more authentic view of God
• Is to begin to doubt the view we have
• To dismantle the view of God we have
when I was only two years old, my father died
• He was a good man, and I heard all my life about wonderful deeds
• A saint of sorts…
• So, in my pre-teen/teen years, I took on his persona
• I became my father’s son, setting out to be heroic and wonderful like my father was heroic and wonderful
I heard he was a track star in school, so in 7th grade I began to run
• I wasn’t very quick, so I gravitated toward the endurance races
• I ran to be my father’s son
And over time, with the absence of a father at home…
And over time, as my dominant male influence was my coaches…
• I began to fashion a figure of what a father was like
• And it was this…
• A father was, in my mind, a presence in one’s life who was determined to help one get one’s goals accomplished
• A presence in one’s life to help one work hard, keep one’s self focused, give one the right principles and techniques for life
• And when you applied these techniques…
• When you did the hard work this father encouraged you to do..
• You found yourself becoming all you could be
• You found yourself rising to the challenge of fulfilled potential
A father, in my mind, filled this role in a son’s life
• The coach, the helper, the one to direct one toward achievement and accomplishment
• The attainment-helper, the accomplishment-mentor
• The realizing-your-latent-potential director
And this was a father…
And this became my God
Now this was a fine experience of God for a few years
• I became quite accomplished in my religion
• Which opened doors for me I will forever be grateful were opened
But to grow beyond that stage of my faith journey, I had to begin to deconstruct my God-as-coach image of God
• I had to see the faith journey less about performance
• Less about accomplishment
• Less about doing the right things, and getting the right affirmations for doing it
And to experience this shift in perspective…
• I had to go through a season of doubting my God
• Doubting my faith in that God
• Taking apart my faith
• Dismantling my belief
• Wondering, questioning, dissembling my religion, my view of God
And today, I am very thankful for that season of doubt
• Today I am very thankful my God is no longer the coach of my life
• Today I am very glad that the spiritual journey is not a journey of attaining some level of maturity or accomplishment
• Today I am so glad I traded in that God for a new one
But the process required to make this shift was quite disorienting
• A bit frightening
• A bit alarming and disconcerting
• But doubts about God…
• Doubts about the assumptions of our in-groups…
• Doubts about the minister’s view of God…
• Doubts about our parent’s view of God…
are necessary on the journey to of God-experience
Let me talk specifically about moving from one very common view of God to another one…
I read a book that called Re-Enchanting Christianity, recently
The author Tomlinson, referenced another author, Marcus Borg
Borg talked about two views of God
• Both of which are held by deeply spiritual people
• Both of which can be found in scripture
When I finish explaining these two views to you, I’m going to suggest that the latter is a more complete, fuller view of God
• a better view of God than the former
And I’ll suggest that to go from one to the other, many have to pass through a season of…
• doubt, faith-dismantling, questioning, wondering, and disbelieving
The first view of God Borg describes he calls the God-of-Requirements-and-Rewards
• This view starts when we imagine God as King of the Universe
(lots of scriptures refer to God this way, as king, as monarch)
• This Requirement-Reward view, imagines God the King setting forth a list of requirements for his subjects to follow
Live this way; do not live that way
Use your sexuality this way, not that way
Treat people this way, not that way
Do not do these things (lust, greed, envy, pride, etc.)
And do do these things (charity, kindness, goodness, etc.)
• Obey these precepts, and do not disobey
This God-King presides over a Divine legal system, and we must obey God’s ways, God’s principles, God’s dictates
• Divine laws have been passed, and obedience is required
• And the wages of deviating from the requirements are death
(as it says in Romans
Many of us started our faith walk, believing in this God
I certainly did
• A crime has been committed, all have disobeyed God’s ways
• And as a result of the crime, there must be punishment
• Sin must be punished
But fortunately for us, our God has provided a way to meet the demands of punishment without us having to die in the process
• The death of Jesus has provided a way for the wages of our sin and disobedience to be paid through his sacrifice on the cross
• Forgiveness and salvation are rewards that come to those who call on the grace of God given us in Christ Jesus
So we’ve been given a fresh new start.
Now it is to us to go and sin no more
• For when we fail to obey, bad things happen to us (and they do)
• And when we do obey, good things happen to us (and they do)
This is the view of God I picked up along the way
• I suspect that is the case for many of you too
• And honestly, this way of viewing God has really helped me
• It helped me express my desire for God through obedience
• It helped me habituate myself to certain helpful practices
• It helped me see God in the circumstances of my life, my days
This view of God was Life to me for a long time
It moved me forward on my spiritual journey
In the Requirement-Reward view of I saw Christian living as meeting certain requirements
• And being rewarded when I did
• And being punished when I did not
(even if there was no external punishment, guilt and shame were punishment enough)
That common way of seeing God, this guy Borg, called the Requirement-Reward view
The second view, he called the Love-Justice view
This view, also prominent in scripture and history, imagines the character of God as love and justice
• The prophet Hosea was a particularly strong advocate of this view
In his writings, God is a lover, and God’s people are the beloved
Speaking for God, Hosea says this…
I will allure her, I will bring her out into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her…
There she shall respond to me as in the days of her youth.
But this Love-God, is also a Justice-God
• We can’t talk about the one without talking about the other
• In the Bible, justice is how love is expressed
• God’s love isn’t manifest as pink hearts and flowery valentines
• No, God’s love is manifest in a passion for justice
• God loves everything and God loves everybody
Not just me, not just you, not just us
Not just Americans, not just Christians
God loves everything
God loves everybody
And this all-encompassing love of God manifests with such zeal that justice must naturally prevail
One of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite passages to preach was from prophet Amos
In chapter 5 Amos speaks for God…
Quit with the burnt offerings already
Quit with the grain offerings
Quit with all the things you do to satisfy those religious requirements
You bring all the right stuff to Me
You meet all the right requirements
But go away!
Stop bringing me these things. I have no regard for them
Don’t’ sing Me any more of your noisy songs
Don’t play Me any more of your pretty harp-tunes
Instead, go out and let justice run down like waters
Go out, and let righteousness flow like a mighty stream
God’s zeal for justice resonates throughout scripture…
because God’s nature of love resonates throughout scripture
In a world where some are treated poorly while others are treated with regard, God’s love demands justice
• In a world where some have advantages that make it rare for them to fail…
while others have obstacles that make it rare for them to succeed…
• God’s love demands fairness and justice
In a world where some nations grow uncomfortably wealthy, even in an economic downturn
While other nations cannot feed their people
God’s love demands justice
• Demands we not see this state of affairs as simply way things are
“the poor you will always have with you” was never intended as a justification for inaction in the face of poverty and hunger
When we begin to dismantle view of God as Requirements and Rewards
• And when we begin to base our faith on a view of God that stresses Love and Justice…
• We will to live differently
• We will express our faith differently
• We will see our religion change
What is at stake in this question of how we view God is nothing less than the nature of the Christian life
• When ours is a God of Love/Justice, the Christian life is about becoming compassionate and caring
…about making things right on the earth
…about contending for the well-being of the human race
…about loving and being loved
…about working for the respect and dignity of all
…about caring for the earth and all its inhabitants
• When ours is a God of Requirement/Reward, the Christian life is about doing whatever it takes to be saved…
…whatever it takes to gain the ultimate reward
…to gain heaven at the end of one’s life
Both views create an imperative
• The one is an imperative of threat: do this, or it’ll go badly for you
• The other is an imperative of invitation:
• Do this because it the nature of your God to love
• And Divine Love invites you to join the work for well-being of all
The church that chased my friend away was deeply familiar with the God of Requirements and Rewards
• They were deeply concerned that my friend meet the requirements of belief
• So concerned, that they were willing to chase him out of the faith for his doubts rather than risk God’s punishment
• God for them, was the giver the Right Way
• The issuer of the True and Right Beliefs
• And theirs was to hear those ways, believe those beliefs
• And to make sure everybody in the camp did the same
If theirs had been a God of Love and Justice it might have gone differently
• There might have been room for him to wonder and doubt
• His church might not have encouraged his wife to leave him for being the apostate that he was
The God of Love/Justice meets people at a deep dimension of human desire
• We have a deeply imbedded need to be loved and accepted
• We want more of our God, of our faith than a set of heartless laws that we must obey
• We want to be embraced for who we are, and to be love wherever we are on the journey
And since scripture actually points us to this God of Love/Justice…
• it occurs to me that this is a preferable way of defining nature of our God
• because this God was nowhere to be found, my friend left the Christian church to find him
• And he is not alone
Hear this from me, your minister
• Your God loves you, loves you, loves you
You are an incomplete being
• You are not yet fully redeemed
• And you are still stuck being an expression of your lesser self
• Your false self, your still-emerging self
As such, you do things, you say things, and you fail to do/say things
• All of which shame you
• All of which frustrate you
• All of which make you feel a failure
• Like Paul, you struggle w/ 2 natures; one of Life and one of Death
…one of mortal Flesh and one of Divine Spirit
And when the mortal Flesh nature of sin and death is in ascendency…
• Know this…
• Yours is a God of love, love, love
• Eyes wide open to your shortcomings
• Eyes even wider open to your failures than you are
• Yours is a God of love, love, love
And so you are safe
You can embark on a journey that brings love/justice to the earth
You can go out and make right what is wrong
Make good what is bad
Make true what is false
Defend those who are attacked
Comforting those who are discouraged
Work on behalf of the poor
You can visit prisoners
Clothe those who are naked
Befriend those who are lonely
Invite the solitary into friendships
This you can do
Because yours is a God of love
Yours is a God of justice