What a cruel, petty God they follow.
I’ve been thinking about the God that conservative Christians glorify. He’s not the God of the New Testament – at least, not its first four books. He’s not the God that Jesus described, and called on us to praise and obey. He’s not the God I love.
No, they follow a cruel, petty God.
The God they follow knit each of us in our mother’s wombs. He knows who we will become, and what we are capable of doing. He creates us to be who we will be, and sets us exactly where He wants. Whether we are rich or poor, black or white, funny or stoic, extroverted or introverted – those are His decisions. But not if we are gay. Although humans vary in every other way, physical, mental and emotional, their God made every one of us was straight, with no variation in anything involving sexual orientation or gender. And so that God demands, on threat of eternal damnation, that if we believe – if we know – that we are gay, transgender, or different in some other way, we must deny that very existence. He demands that we pretend to be something we know we are not, for reasons that only He understands. He treats our love and existence as an abomination. That is what they believe about the God they choose to follow.
The God they follow is omnipotent and omniscient. He controls heaven and earth, and everything that lives in them. He can move mountains if He chooses, heal our gravest wounds with a wave of his hand, change our life with a touch of His grace. If we have enough faith in Him, He will reward us with riches – monetary, spiritual, or both. But the undeniable converse is that He has chosen not to interfere in many desolate parts of this world. He has watched evil, misery, pain, and done nothing. He has picked winners and losers and allowed untold suffering by people who did nothing wrong. And if they are right, He has chosen some of the Christians in this country, America, as his favorites. They, and they alone, understand and embody God’s will, and He demands that they impose that will on the rest of us. And although His son spoke of peace while He walked the earth, their God wants war, and guns, for His followers. That is what they believe about the God they choose to follow.
The God they follow loves all of us. He created us out of the earth, spinning us from nothing but thoughts and dreams over a handful of days. He set us in a beautiful garden and fulfilled our every need. Even when we rejected Him, acting out of weakness and vanity, He didn’t abandon us. He saved us from captors in Egypt and elsewhere, led us to the promised land, and then built a magnificent kingdom for us. And when even that was not enough for a rebellious people to live as He commanded, He sent His only son to earth to save us from our sins, because He loves us. Yet that same God would condemn us to Hell if we fail to revere Him and His son, even those in distant lands who never heard His name. That same God values our devotion to Him over our devotion to his other creations. He is unconcerned about our deeds, and will welcome us into Heaven if we do nothing more than commit ourselves to Him. He craves our praise and devotion, more than he craves our good work for our fellow man. This is what they believe about the God they choose to follow.
He is a cruel, petty God.
I grew up believing in that God. I grew up with the certain knowledge that evangelical Christianity was uniquely connected to Him, and favored. But before I was fully grown, I started to question whether the God that I was born to follow truly loved the humans He had created.
I wondered why He would care who we loved – especially when He had created us to love that person – and damn us to Hell if we failed to change that fundamental part of ourselves. I wondered why that unique part of our existence could matter so much. I wondered why He condemned some to that existence, when others were free to marry exactly who they wanted and build a life together. And when I couldn’t find an answer, I started to change my views of what God expects us to be. Because I believe in a God of love.
I wondered why He would sit back and watch as hundreds, thousands, or millions of innocent people suffer for wrongs committed by others, over which they had no control. I wondered why He would pick certain people, or groups of people, to be winners and losers, for no apparent reason. I wondered how I was lucky enough to have been born into the richest country in the world, at a time of growth and development, when so many others – too many others – lived lives of misery with no way out. And when I couldn’t find an answer, I started to change my views of what God does for us, and what we must do for ourselves. Because I believe in a God of love.
I wondered why He would deem allegiance to Him to be the only requirement for joining His kingdom, instead of measuring our commitment to the people he created to walk the earth with us. I wondered why He would talk so much in His book about caring for widows and orphans, but not require that selfless commitment from any of His followers, choosing instead to judge us by whether we fight to protect cells that may one day grow into a baby in a stranger’s womb. I wondered why He would command us to care for the stranger among us, but limit his mandate to the stranger who is lucky enough to be here legally. And when I couldn’t find an answer, I started to change my views of what God asks of us. Because I believe in a God of love.
They believe in a cruel, petty God.
They showed us what they believe when they chose to follow Trump – to proclaim that their God had elevated him to the Presidency. They showed us that their morality was situational and that it was devoted, in the end, to gathering power. They showed us that Jesus’s words meant as little to them as we had long suspected, and that His command to care for widows and orphans, the strangers among us, were commands that they never believed they were required to follow. They showed us how cheaply they would sell their souls, in their resolve to “save” the country they believed was theirs, but which in truth had never actually existed.
The God they follow is a cruel, petty God. He is not a God of love.
And these are some of the reasons I no longer follow that God.
Because I believe in a God of love.