First, I apologize for the break in service.\u00a0 My blog was down due to circumstances beyond anyone\u2019s control.\u00a0 That happens sometimes.\u00a0 I appreciate your patience and willingness to come back when service is restored.<\/p>\n
Today my thoughts are about the trivializing of God in popular American religion.\u00a0 If just trivializing existed only among the laity, that would be bad enough.\u00a0 But it becomes dizzyingly dismaying when it appears in the pulpit!<\/p>\n
This morning\u00a0I went to lunch with several of my students (and one former student).\u00a0 We meet every other week to discuss current theological subjects and the topic usually has something to do with concerns of emerging church people.\u00a0 (My former student pastors a church some would describe as emerging or emergent and the students are all involved in a \u201ccollective\u201d that practices transformative performance a la Peter Rollins and Ikon.)\u00a0 I learn a lot from these very thoughtful young Christians.\u00a0 They help keep me from becoming an old fogey theology professor!<\/p>\n
On my way to the lunch meeting I happened to pick up the current issue of a free \u201ccity magazine.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s mainly for women, but occasionally I find something interesting in its pages.\u00a0 The magazine always contains an article written by a local pastor.\u00a0 This month the guest pastor serves a \u201cFirst Church\u201d of a mainline denomination.<\/p>\n
The column\u2019s title is \u201cYour Biggest Fan: God does what is best for us.\u201d\u00a0 Here\u2019s the crucial message in a nutshell: \u201cIf ever there is someone who you can rely on to always be in your corner, it\u2019s God\u2013your biggest fan.\u00a0 He created you in his image, after all.\u00a0 Probably, you disappoint him now and then with your decisions and poor judgment, but he goes on loving you and rooting for you just the same.\u201d\u00a0 Then, the closing declaration of this \u201csermon\u201d is: \u201cGod is truly your biggest fan.\u00a0 No matter what your circumstances are, you can make it work with his support.\u00a0 That\u2019s what really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, I apologize for not acknowledging the author or publication, but given what I think of this theology they would probably appreciate me not mentioning them by name!<\/p>\n
Of course, I shouldn\u2019t and won\u2019t judge the pastor by this one article.\u00a0 It might not represent the best of his preaching or thinking.\u00a0 That\u2019s another reason not to name him.\u00a0 However, and nevertheless, the sentiment expressed in this particular article represents the worst of contemporary Christian thinking in America.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n
To think\u00a0 and speak of God as \u201cmy biggest fan\u201d is to elevate myself to a position along side if not above God.\u00a0 At least that is the inevitable impression it conveys to people.\u00a0 By all means, God is love and his loving kindness and mercy are beyond description.\u00a0 But can describing God as \u201cmy biggest\u00a0fan\u201d begin to do justice to God\u2019s love, wrath,\u00a0grace and mercy?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n
After all, Jesus\u2019 metaphor for God\u2019s relationship to us is \u201cFather.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t think \u201cfan\u201d begins to express what \u201cheavenly parent\u201d means.\u00a0 Did Jesus\u2019 parable of the prodigal son\/waiting father\/elder brother picture the father as the prodigal son\u2019s \u201cfan?\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n
Notice other language in the article.\u00a0 The pastor says \u201cProbably, you disappoint him now and then\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 Probably?!\u00a0 How can such a statement begin to do justice to our sinfulness and God\u2019s wrath\u2013even if we understand wrath as \u201ctough love?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The language this pastor used is borrowed from the culture of self-esteem and points attention away from the gospel to something else entirely.\u00a0 It is more compatible with New Thought (a quasi-religious philosophy in which American culture is saturated since the 19th century when it burst onto the scene) than with the biblical gospel of depravity and grace.<\/p>\n
No doubt the pastor thought he was contextualizing the gospel to modern American women and men\u2013steeped as they are in messages such as \u201cabove all, be true to yourself\u201d and \u201cno limits\u201d and \u201cbelieve in yourself.\u201d\u00a0 But I regard his message as accommodation and capitulation to that Zeitgeist.\u00a0 This is, I fear, \u201canother gospel\u201d than the one Jesus and Paul and the other apostles and church fathers and reformers proclaimed.<\/p>\n
To say that God is \u201calways in your corner\u201d is to trivialize God and negate human finitude and fallenness (the two \u201cf words\u201d without which we cannot begin to understand the gospel).\u00a0 In popular parlance \u201cin my corner\u201d means always unconditionally supporting me and applauding everything I do even if sometimes with constructive criticism.\u00a0 That metaphor turns God into my life coach rather than my father in heaven and merciful judge.\u00a0 And it turns me into God\u2019s summum bonum rather than the other way around.<\/p>\n
THAT God is nothing more or less than an idol\u2013an American idol.\u00a0 It is an expression of contemporary American consumer religion of self-esteem which is just another form of the most ancient heresy of all\u2013idolatry of self, refusal of creatureliness.<\/p>\n
Also, the final statement of the article (quoted above) makes Christianity about \u201cmaking it work\u201d for me.\u00a0 In effect, the \u201cit\u201d there becomes God.\u00a0 God is reduced to a tool for working out my circumstances to my advantage.\u00a0 This is sheer American utilitarianism and instrumentalism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Years ago I studied under Wolfhart Pannenberg in Munich.\u00a0 I\u2019ll never forget something he said to a group of pastors over lunch: \u201cI used to go to church and wonder where was the gospel? Then I realized \u2018the gospel is what the preacher SHOULD HAVE SAID\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s my reaction to this pastor\u2019s article.\u00a0 What\u2019s yours?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First, I apologize for the break in service.\u00a0 My blog was down due to circumstances beyond anyone\u2019s control.\u00a0 That happens sometimes.\u00a0 I appreciate your patience and willingness to come back when service is restored. Today my thoughts are about the trivializing of God in popular American religion.\u00a0 If just trivializing existed only among the laity, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n