OUR SMALL GODS: PART 4

We could probably go on and on listing other small gods in addition to those that J.B. Phillips pointed out in his book Your God is Too Small. Here are just a few more to round out the list:

God in the Dock

This is the title essay in a collection by C.S. Lewis. And he outlines some of the many ways in which we act as if we were the prosecuting attorney or judge and God was in the prisoner's dock being accused of some crime. His so-called crime might be the taking of a life or lives at a much too early age. It was that circumstance that was largely behind the abandonment of the whole concept of God (or convicting Him in their mind as guilty) by such famous people such as Voltaire, Charles Darwin and Mark Twain.

Another example is pointed out in James 4:11, which reads (in the NRSV) “Do not speak evil of one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law...” At this point, James could have well have gone on to logically say, “...and judges the law-giver, God.”

And by “law” in this verse, we might as well include all of God's revealed word. Many of us have gotten so much into the habit of questioning every word that a preacher or Bible teacher might say that we naturally extend it to questioning the veracity of Scripture itself. And since all Scripture is inspired by God (II Timothy 3:16), that comes very close to sinning against the Holy Spirit who does the inspiring.

A National God

Our forefathers in America rightly rejected the European concept of instituting a “national religion” such as The Church of England, etc. Today, the debate has been extended to whether or not there is anything wrong with calling ourselves a “Christian nation.” I won't try to insert myself into that hotbed of contention. However, I think that it is an appropriate time to remind Americans that there is no such thing as a divinely ordained political party or political leader or even country which is the one that God endorses in some exclusive way.

I think of the great movie Chariots of Fire concerning the devout Eric Liddell's decision not to compete in the qualifying race trials on the Sabbath. The comment made by one of the members of the British Olympic Committee is quite memorable and goes something like this: “I can remember a time when it was country first and God second.”

Of course, that comment probably had little historical truth to it. But look at another older example, this time from the Old Testament. Right before the battle of Jericho, Joshua happens to run into a man with a sword in his hand. Joshua asks him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” The man replies, “Neither. But as the commander of the LORD's army I have now come.” One of the other ways in which we tend to put “God in a box” is to claim Him as our unique God. That was precisely Israel's error when they thought they were invincible since they had captured God into their own box, the ark of the covenant, and he would therefore be compelled to take their side in whatever conflict might ensue.

An Amorphous Blob

I can't yet locate the source of a story C.S. Lewis told of a person who admitted that her image of God was that of some sort of shapeless gray entity. She could certainly be forgiven for that view since the Bible goes out of its way not to picture God the Father and even in the Ten Commandments seems to prohibit any such attempt to do so, although there is a little controversy on that point.

Fortunately, we do have the example of Jesus Christ, who stated that to see him was to see the Father. This should remove forever any sort of vague imagery for God, but I am afraid that it does persist today in various forms.

But some religious groups take the idea of an Invisible God to an extreme. A friend of mine was once invited to attend the worship service of a Unitarian Church. After the message, he thought it would probably be time for Communion. But instead of passing the cup and bread, the leader brought out a shallow bowl filled with water and a smooth stone resting at the bottom. He told the congregation that as the bowl came to them, they were to do anything they wanted with it that would help them commune with the Higher Power. If I were there, I am afraid that I can think of several things to do that they would probably not have appreciated.

In effect, they were substituting for the very concrete communion elements representing a very real historical event in which God-in-flesh died for us, nothing more nor less than a representation of the primal chaos before God created the world. By attempting to encompass all possible images of God in their “religion,” they had in fact eliminated all of them.

The Systematic God

As in many cases, both extremes of a spectrum are often both wrong. And compared to the above example, we have the all-too-common phenomenon of those individuals and groups who revel in being able to answer all Bible questions with pat answers instilled into them by certain seminaries.

I attended a congregation in which the pastor one Sunday morning only a little reluctantly admitted that our particular church tradition had the perfect hermeneutical method, the perfect explanation of future events, the perfect method of preaching, and the perfect form of church government. Not surprisingly, a lawyer friend of mine from work who also attended there explained to me that he liked to study one Scripture passage or theological issue at a time until he had pinned down exactly what it meant. Then he could leave it and go on to master the next important theological fact. You will also not be surprised that there was a two-page detailed doctrinal statement with which you had to agree before you were allowed to join the church.

Such people as those who fully subscribed to the beliefs and practices of this church were at least broad-minded enough to admit that it was possible for those to be saved who did not belong to their brand of church. However, they were still convinced that they were the only ones who really had the truth all correctly understood.

Unfortunately, God Himself can't be mastered quite so easily. As Deuteronomy 29:29 states, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the words of this law.”