Evangelical Idolatry: A Special Post for My Bible-Believing Readers.

Does God need us to defend him? This is where I think many of us, who say we believe in God as revealed in the Bible, get into trouble with our faith, as there are things about this God that are hard to understand and, if we are honest, that even offend us. So we strive to make God in our image, rationalizing and justifying (or just flat out ignoring) those things we don't like about how this God is often portrayed, especially in the part of the Bible Christians call the Old Testament.

But really, when we do this, how is that any different than carving our god(s) out of wood and then bowing down to a material image created by human ingenuity and skill? Aren't we simply creating a mental image (i.e., idol) of who we think God should be? Then we are forced to defend what, to us, are God's seemingly indefensible actions as revealed in the Bible. How is this not the same thing as idolatry? The only difference is that we create a mental image of who we think God should be. True, it is not a wooden, stone or metal one, but it is a human-created image just the same. When the revealed God, as found in the pages of the Bible, doesn't fit our image of who we think and have created our God to be, then we manipulate the scriptures via our interpreting, rationalizing, and/or justifying in order to defend the image we have created. And so we continue to believe in, bow down to and worship that image.

Isaiah rebuked the Israelites for creating material images of God and then mocked them for having to physically defend their image. Would he now rebuke us for creating our own mental images of who we want God to be, and then mock us for having to intellectually defend that image? Read Isaiah 40:18-31 (below, NRSV) and see if God really needs, or wants, us to defend him. (Please read it slowly and really think about what the prophet is saying.)

To whom can you compare God? To what image can you liken him? A craftsman casts an idol; a metalsmith overlays it with gold and forges silver chains for it. To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; he then seeks a skilled craftsman to make an idol that will not fall over. Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earthʼs foundations were made? He is the one who sits on the earthʼs horizon; its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, and spreads it out like a pitched tent. He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing; he makes the earthʼs leaders insignificant. Indeed, they are barely planted; yes, they are barely sown; yes, they barely take root in the earth, and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up, and the wind carries them away like straw. “To whom can you compare me? Whom do I resemble?” says the Holy One. Look up at the sky! Who created all these heavenly lights? He is the one who leads out their ranks; he calls them all by name. Because of his absolute power and awesome strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you say, Jacob, Why do you say, Israel, “The Lord is not aware of what is happening to me, My God is not concerned with my vindication”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is an eternal God, the creator of the whole earth. He does not get tired or weary; there is no limit to his wisdom. He gives strength to those who are tired; to the ones who lack power, he gives renewed energy. Even youths get tired and weary; even strong young men clumsily stumble. But those who wait for the Lordʼs help find renewed strength; they rise up as if they had eaglesʼ wings, they run without growing weary, they walk without getting tired.

Seriously, does the God who created and sustains the universe really need us to defend him? And when we do, are we defending our idolatrous version of who we think God is or should be, or are we defending God as he is revealed in the Bible? To my Bible-believing readers, even if what I'm saying strikes you as wrong (heretical even), I would urge you to think about it for awhile - as honestly as you are able. I've personally come to the place where I know that I spent years, preached many messages and taught many classes, where I defended my own version of who I thought God should be, in order to explain away (or deem as irrelevant), those passages in the Hebrew Bible where God's actions, words and laws, if taken as they are presented, seemed indefensible to me.

The goal I have for the rest of my life is to have an authentic and honest faith. I won't have all the answers. There are some (maybe even many) things about God that I won't understand and may even bother my twenty-first century western sensibilities and that I'll have to live with. But I'm done defending God. He doesn't need me to do that. He doesn't want me to do that. He doesn't have to fit my image of who I think God should be. He doesn't have to do or say what I think he should do or say. He is not accountable to me. And his ways, at least some of them, are beyond my comprehension. I'll end, once again, with what the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans about God's incomprehensible nature, wisdom and character (Romans 11:33-36):

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how fathomless his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? Or who has first given to God, that God needs to repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen.

Does God Need a Defence Attorney? Part 2

More than anything I want to have an authentic and honest faith.  This is too important for me to play religious games, wasting my time defending that which seems indefensible or justify that which seems unjustifiable - at least in my own mind. I want to focus on that which rings true for me, which generally are those things that can be investigated and have some measure of concrete support. That's my primary goal. My secondary goal is to be able to communicate to others, who also are earnestly seeking to have an authentic and honest faith, the rationale of my faith so that they can work on theirs. I'm really not interested in defending, justifying or even explaining my faith to those who are not seeking. I really don't care anymore whether or not people think I'm a fool, a religious nut-job or faith fanatic.

When I was an atheist, I reasoned that if a deity (or deities) existed, then by the very definition, that god could do whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted and with whomever it wanted. That god would not have to justify himself to those he created. She would be under no obligation to explain her actions to those whose lives she sustained or chose not to sustain. And I reasoned that there was no way I would ever fully understand that deity, because it would be so far beyond me in terms of power, ability, knowledge, etc., with nothing among its creation to which to compare it. So, when it came to the Bible, if there was a god, he could chose to create the entire, virtually infinite universe in six microseconds, six hours, six days or six millennia -- any way he chose, any time he chose. It could then chose to destroy what it created and start all over again, and not have to justify or even explain. And if it chose to come into this world as a human being and prove its divine nature by performing miracles, why not?

I think when those of us who believe in the divine being as revealed in the Bible get ourselves into trouble, is when we think we have to explain, defend and justify the things he is reported to have said and/or done throughout history. Maybe, just maybe, he isn't accountable to us. And maybe we don't like that and refuse to believe in and/or put our trust in a god that we can't fully understand and therefore explain. But isn't that us wanting to make god in our own image? Isn't that us wanting the god we chose to believe in, the god that we want. We want our god to be accountable to us. We think his thoughts and actions should be what we think they should be. We want him to explain himself so that we get it, agree with him and can justify him to others. But maybe, just maybe, we can't expand our thinking enough to understand all that he is and is able to do. Because he is god and we are not, then maybe, just maybe, he's not accountable to us in any ways other than how he chooses to be.  And he doesn't need me to be his defence attorney to the world.

I am challenged by passages in the Bible that utilize the analogy of the potter and the clay, because the clay does not say to the potter, "Why did you create me like this?" (See Isaiah 29:15-16; 45:9-12;  64:8; Jeremiah 18:1-11; Romans 9:19-24.) God is God. I am not. Though I seek to understand, my understanding will always be limited. Either I accept my limitations or I will put those limitations on the god I claim to believe in.

God doesn't need me to defend him. He is not accountable to me, but rather I am accountable to him. Instead, I will choose to stand back in awe and say along with the apostle Paul, "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how fathomless his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? Or who has first given to God, that God needs to repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen." (Romans 11:33-36).