I like to provoke people…into thinking, though it often provokes anger. There are times I will overstate to cause a reaction that then moves into thinking. I don’t sugarcoat and am a fan of raw honesty. I made such a raw, honest, provocative overstatement on Facebook.
I am being convinced more and more of the truth I recently heard…there would be no atheists if it weren’t for the church. Sometimes, though I hate to be cynical or pessimistic, it seems the church does a better job producing atheists than disciples.
A harsh indictment, I know. Today, I offer a plea. A plea to take a serious look at the God we have presented to the world. If the only way people could get to know you was through me, I should take seriously how I present you to others. Now, I realize we are not the only way people can get to know God, but we are the primary means. We are His representatives…re-present Him to the world.
The church is made up of individuals who sincerely want to follow God. These individuals are eager for others to learn to know God….that want to make disciples. My indictment is not against individuals who are sincerely desiring to follow God. Individuals are not necessarily to blame…our theology is. We have a theology that presents God more like a controlling pimp than a passionate lover….a schizophrenic father rather than a loving dad. There are things we attribute to Him that would result in our arrest if we followed them…things that would make our parental heart recoil if we considered imitating Him in it…things that would cause a healthy woman to run from her lover.
We talk of God stripping us of everything, taking us to a strange place away from family and friends so we can learn to completely depend upon Him. He wants to use us for His pleasure. We say that even if He kills us, we would still trust Him. That’s sounds more like a prostitute talking about her controlling pimp. God doesn’t strip us….He asks that we surrender. He doesn’t take us away…He invites us to come with Him. He doesn’t use us for His pleasure…we pleasure one another together.
God is credited with sickness and tragedies to help us learn. What kind of father purposefully injures his child to teach him a lesson? Many have been taught that God creates some to go to hell to show His glory and power…and it should ignite a greater passion in those of us who were chosen to go to heaven. What kind of father would bring children into the world to torture and abuse them so he can show his glory and power, and so the children he loves would appreciate him more? That’s a schizophrenic father, not a loving daddy.
We have been taught that God is in control. He orchestrates everything that happens. “Your life might not be going according to your plan. But, it’s exactly how God planned it.” What???!!! Tell that to the young lady who is trying to heal from PTSD caused by her husband. Or, the woman who was repeatedly raped as an 8 year old while the neighbor boys looked on. What kind of God orchestrates those circumstances? The God of our making…the God of our faulty theology.
Richard Dawkins, one of the most well-known atheists in the world, writes this about God,
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”(Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion)
That’s painful to read and even more painful to realize Dawkins not only echoes the sentiment of most atheists and agnostics, even many believers would agree with him. Unfortunately, it’s a raw, honest look at the image that has often been presented by the church because of faulty theology. I believe we are responsible for that.
To understand further how the church is connected to the rise of atheism, we look to history. From the beginning, mankind innately believed in god(s). Nature convinces men there is a god…Paul addresses this in Romans. It is logical and innate in us to know that if there’s stuff, there’s a stuff-maker. Most cultures had numerous deities that were basically larger, more powerful versions of themselves. Abraham introduced to the world monotheism; he is the father of the only 3 monotheistic religions: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. When did it become logical to believe there is no god? I would submit it happened during the Age of Enlightenment. Man began to believe in man. Reason trumped religion. Man no longer needed a deity. He was master of himself. But, think about this…The Age of Enlightenment came on the heels of hundreds of years of persecution by the church that would make ISIS look tame. Hundreds of years of people being horrifically tortured and killed….in the name of God. I know correlation does not mean causation…but it does make one wonder. Was atheism the result of mankind recoiling from, and rejecting, a violent god who destroys those who disagree with him?
I am deeply saddened, overwhelmed with grief sometimes, at the way our Father is presented. I am zealous about communicating an image of God that accurately portrays His Father heart. It is the one of the reasons I study theology. We too often look to the God we see in the Old Testament for our understanding, and Dawkin’s assessment is pretty close to what we see there. But, it is nothing like God. God is, and always has been, just like Jesus. In the Old Testament, the Old Covenant veiled God…His character, His nature, His desires, His heart. That veil distorted the image we have of Him. But, that image was corrected in Jesus.
I implore us as His followers to know Him-and present Him-as He is revealed in Jesus. Can we step back and take an honest look at what we say about Him, what we have been taught about Him, and what we attribute to Him. If we attribute to Him something that would cause us to distrust or run from a person if seen in them, then it’s not to be attributed to God. He is more trustworthy than any person we know. If we credit Him for an action that we would recoil from in horror, then it is not from His hand. He is safer than anyone else. If there is something in His nature that we instinctively know we must not imitate, then it is not in His nature. He is the best example to imitate. We are encouraged to be imitators of God, as children imitate their father. He is a far better parent, friend, and lover than we are. Our doctrine should align with that truth.
This is a plea….our theology must reflect the heart of God.