prayer from the cell: how to insult God

November 18, 2012 by 5 Comments

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About David Hayward

David Hayward runs the blog nakedpastor as a graffiti artist on the walls of religion where he critiques religion… specifically Christianity and the church. He also runs the online community The Lasting Supper where people can help themselves discover, explore and live in spiritual freedom.

  • amazonfeet

    We try to make God in our image, and forget that we are made in God’s image…then, we take that image we have made, and whack others over the head with it….

  • http://www.ascendingthehills.blogspot.com Jessica

    That’ll do it! Or at least that statement I’ve found will certainly insult “God’s people”, of which if you have that view (which I agree with) you are not apparently part of.

    I remember coming to my former pastor and questioning Him about God..who or what He is. I told him that through meditation, reflection and study I just had the impression that we projected human qualities onto Him. He told me that that reasoning was rejecting Jesus, and thus, rejecting God entirely. A sinful way of thinking that would ultimately lead to my faith’s ruin. He also accused me of being a pantheist.

    I have to confess that a couple of years later, I have found myself free of the label Christian. So, that “line of reasoning” did have a dramatic effect in the course of my spiritual journey. But I shed no tears for the loss of the dogma which I felt bound me to my pursuit of truth in the past. Instead, I feel an incredible freedom to move forward.

    Sorry for the length of this!

  • http://nakedpastor.com nakedpastor

    i loved it jessica. no need to apologize!

  • http://thoughts-brigitte.blogspot.com Brigitte

    You set up a distinction that is not necessary to make. We certainly cannot say everything about God with him being other than ourselves. But this does not mean that we can also know him in human terms, especially since he deigned to come as a human being. You can have both the hidden and the revealed God. It is exactly the desire to have God in your own image, way, feeling, imagination, that the revealed God is rejected. It’s all backwards.

  • Caryn LeMur

    Jessica: in many ways, I agree with you. God’s thoughts are higher than our [human] thoughts, and His ways past fully understanding.

    I like to define ‘how’ God should act, either by my expectation or by my reading of the First Covenant Books(old testament) . Then, I like to study how Jesus, who claimed to be the only son of God, acted while upon this earth.

    Over and over again, Jesus lives beyond my anticipated definition. For example: Jesus touched a leper and heald the leper (rather than establish an on-going program of any nature). Another example: Jesus healed a Roman Centurion’s slave (without demanding conversion of lifestyle or the forsaking of slave ownership). [both in Matt 8]

    So, my own personal concern is not avoiding anthropo-morphism, but engaging Jesus-morphism.

    So glad to meet you, btw. Those that reason and engage, are those that grow.

    Much love in Christ always and unconditionally; Caryn