{"id":562,"date":"2018-04-27T23:59:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-28T06:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/divergence.blog\/?p=562"},"modified":"2018-04-27T23:59:21","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T06:59:21","slug":"my-god-can-beat-up-your-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/04\/27\/my-god-can-beat-up-your-god\/","title":{"rendered":"My God Can Beat up Your God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If we didn\u2019t say it ourselves when we were kids, we probably heard other kids say it: \u201cMy Dad can beat up your Dad.\u201d\u00a0 We all wanted to think our Dad was the strongest, the best, the one with no fear and the one everyone else better fear.\u00a0 Why? Because we wanted to be protected.\u00a0 We wanted to know there was someone who would defend us and make sure no one would hurt us.<\/p>\n

But there was something else going on too with such assertions.\u00a0 We liked to think we were linked to any supposed superiority by birth.\u00a0 Obviously, if my Dad can beat up all the other Dads, if I\u2019m his son\/daughter, that must say something about me too, right? We hoped by association alone to garner some respect, some attention and deference.\u00a0 I\u2019m reminded of stories where the local police happen to pull over the rich kid in town, or the kid whose father was a prominent figure in the community.\u00a0 Upon making contact with the driver, the officer was asked, \u201cDon\u2019t you know who my father is?\u201d\u00a0 Which is to also assert: \u201cGuess who that makes me.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a lot of identity issues tangled up in all this.\u00a0 Is it really about the Dad, or is it more about us?\u00a0 I think this sort of adolescent need for protection when we are children, which is understandable, can grow into something quite different as we get older.\u00a0 I think it eventually, if never grown out of, can still hang around but perhaps move from a biological father, to a\u2026heavenly Father.<\/p>\n

I believe this is actually a thread that runs through much of the fundamentalist\/evangelical world.\u00a0 An example is the very popular Christian contemporary song, written by Chris Tomlin called \u201cOur God<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Here is the chorus:<\/p>\n

Our God is greater, our God is stronger<\/em><\/p>\n

God You are higher than any other<\/em><\/p>\n

Our God is Healer, awesome in power<\/em><\/p>\n

Our God, Our God<\/em><\/p>\n

Our God is greater, our God is stronger<\/em><\/p>\n

God You are higher than any other<\/em><\/p>\n

Our God is Healer, awesome in power<\/em><\/p>\n

Our God, Our God<\/em><\/p>\n

Even when I was still in that world, even when the worship team I was a part of performed this song, even then, it sounded to me like: \u201cMy Dad can beat up your Dad,\u201d and, \u201cMy Dad is better than your Dad.\u201d\u00a0 And of course, there are other songs like this one.<\/p>\n

Notice too the ownership sensibility:\u00a0 This is \u201cour\u201d God.\u00a0 We possess this God.\u00a0 I know many funda-gelicals would object to such an interpretation.\u00a0 They would claim, rather, that this simply shows a relationship, that we are God\u2019s children, and we are giving praise to that God.\u00a0 They would say that, as \u201cborn-again believers\u201d they have a relationship with this God (children) that others do not have.\u00a0 In this sense, they would argue, this is \u201cour\u201d God and not the \u201cunbelievers\u201d God or the God of the Muslim or Hindu.<\/p>\n

Putting aside, what I think anyway, is the faulty theology inherent in such a formulation, I am struck more here with what I think is the same sensibility wrapped up in the adolescent notion of \u201cMy Dad can beat up your Dad.\u201d\u00a0 Further, I am struck by what I think is really the subtly hidden, underlying assertion: I am higher than these \u201cothers\u201d by association.<\/p>\n

I know many will think this unfair or not a very charitable understanding.\u00a0 Perhaps it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 Still, I am not that optimistic about our fallenness (false-ness?) I guess.\u00a0 I think we are too easily drawn to such sensibilities, where we build a false picture of what we are doing.\u00a0 We assure ourselves we only mean, theologically, that the Christian Trinitarian God, is the only God that exists.\u00a0 That it has nothing to do with us<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cWell, how dare you sir, whatever do you mean,\u201d we reply in our defense.<\/p>\n

What I mean is that this business of God being \u201cours\u201d and being higher, better, stronger, more powerful, than any \u201cother\u201d meaning, \u201cyour\u201d God, is more about us than God.\u00a0 It is about us wanting to be higher, better, and stronger than the \u201cother.\u201d\u00a0 By association, it is us asking the police officer, \u201cDo you know who my Dad is?\u201d\u00a0 Which, again, is really asking: \u201cDo you know who I am?\u201d \u00a0In this context \u201cDad\u201d is a foil, a stand-in, for our greater point, which is: How dare you treat me like, well, just, anyone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My fear is that, when the, as the Bible puts it, Day of the Lord comes, the judgement, it will be the Father of all, the God of all peoples, the one who is close to the broken-hearted, the poor, the outcast, the marginalized, the forgotten, who will be the one pulling over the car of our life.<\/p>\n

And when we indignantly ask this God, \u201cDo you know who my father is?\u201d or \u201cDo you know who I am?\u201d this God may reply: \u201cNo, I do not.\u00a0 And, clearly, you do not know who I am either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, I am well aware of the Biblical language of \u201cour\u201d God and \u201cour\u201d Father.\u00a0 What I suspect however is that too many fundamentalist\/evangelicals understand it as possession and ownership, as control, and as a subliminal reason to stand above, rather than the \u201cour\u201d being understood paradoxically.<\/p>\n

The \u201cour\u201d is only possible because we (all humanity\/all things) are God\u2019s, and not the other way around.\u00a0 We cannot know we are God\u2019s just like we cannot know God, or, as Father Thomas Hopko put it:<\/p>\n

You cannot know God\u2026but you have to know Him to know that<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I would add we cannot know God is \u201cours\u201d but we have to know Him to know that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, \u2018Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb!\u2019\u201d ~Rev. 7<\/p>\n

The \u201cour\u201d God here is not the God we possess or own but the God who possesses and owns all things, including us.\u00a0 And lest we allow modernity to sully our ideas of possession and ownership, what I mean by \u201cpossess\u201d and \u201cown\u201d is that God loves us in complete freedom\u2014a freedom that runs both ways.<\/p>\n

In that freedom, we proclaim the God of all things and people, whether recognized or not.\u00a0 And this God is not the God who beat up all the rest, but, rather, was beaten, whipped, spit upon, and hung naked upon a tree.\u00a0 In return, this God offered forgiveness and peace.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t want to be associated with that God however.\u00a0 No, bring us the God who will defeat all our enemies.\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s the same God\u2014this is \u201cour\u201d God.\u00a0 And this God will defeat our enemies as soon as we realize the enemy\u2026is\u2026us.\u00a0 Once we are defeated, death and hell have no place and we get to Revelation 7.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If we didn\u2019t say it ourselves when we were kids, we probably heard other kids say it: \u201cMy Dad can beat up your Dad.\u201d\u00a0 We all wanted to think our Dad was the strongest, the best, the one with no fear and the one everyone else better fear.\u00a0 Why? Because we wanted to be protected.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[194,383,434,455,473],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-humility","tag-religion","tag-spiritual-direction","tag-teaching","tag-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nMy God Can Beat up Your God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If we didn\u2019t say it ourselves when we were kids, we probably heard other kids say it: \u201cMy Dad can beat up your Dad.\u201d\u00a0 We all wanted to think our Dad was\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/04\/27\/my-god-can-beat-up-your-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My God Can Beat up Your God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If we didn\u2019t say it ourselves when we were kids, we probably heard other kids say it: \u201cMy Dad can beat up your Dad.\u201d\u00a0 We all wanted to think our Dad was\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/04\/27\/my-god-can-beat-up-your-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Divergence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-04-28T06:59:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@darrelllackey1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/04\/27\/my-god-can-beat-up-your-god\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/04\/27\/my-god-can-beat-up-your-god\/\",\"name\":\"My God Can Beat up Your God\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-04-28T06:59:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-04-28T06:59:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#\/schema\/person\/d88a32b8d4b5f40fbd6ccbfce4e0f813\"},\"description\":\"If we didn\u2019t say it ourselves when we were kids, we probably heard other kids say it: \u201cMy Dad can beat up your Dad.\u201d\u00a0 We all wanted to think our Dad was\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/04\/27\/my-god-can-beat-up-your-god\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/04\/27\/my-god-can-beat-up-your-god\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/04\/27\/my-god-can-beat-up-your-god\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"My God Can Beat up Your God\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\",\"name\":\"Divergence\",\"description\":\"Commentary Regarding Fundamentalism - Evangelicalism\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#\/schema\/person\/d88a32b8d4b5f40fbd6ccbfce4e0f813\",\"name\":\"Darrell Lackey\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/333bbffd8a9f931197abc00b19242031?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/333bbffd8a9f931197abc00b19242031?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Darrell Lackey\"},\"description\":\"Darrell Lackey has served as a lead pastor and currently works in the private sector. 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