But first a word from the author. On Sunday the 12th I had the pleasure of sharing a couple of thoughts with the folks at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Here’s how that went.
There’s been a “big to do” about the so-called “feud” between the Roman Catholic Pope and the U.S. President. It has made a blip on the daily news cycle. I guess the talking heads had a slow day.
However, within the hot pile of nothing burgers that the media tries to feed us there are some points that are hiding like glass shards in the bagged salad that is our current political diet.
I’m not talking about the visual pile of crap that the president shared of himself as a “doctor.” That blasphemy has been correctly called out by people of faith everywhere. My concern is more about the image that we carry of God in our day-to-day life. How we in the West view the hierarchy of life regarding God, self, community, and others outside of our communities. Since the Enlightenment, (that didn’t), folks have tried to rationalize and label the Cosmos around us. I believe that such inquiry is good and necessary for us as humans. We need to know. We need to understand. The turn toward rationalization that the 17th and early 18th centuries provided Western cultures with the drive toward our technological and economic reality today. What all of this didn’t do was make us more ‘human.’ That whole idea and process is not equipped to touch and restore humanity to any sense of relationship with God nor each other. In this process of elevating the rationality of humanity and the hope for human achievement we put the Divine in a box. With God within our carefully curated box, we found ourselves able to be the final arbiter of what God can and cannot do. Boundaries were erected in order to define the spheres of influence that could be divine or human. In effect, God was neutered and relativized to a personal realm of faith and ‘belief.’ This God truly had no place in our enlightened and natural world.
Ok, so what? What’s this have to do with all of those words have to do with the feud? Actually, the feud has brought all of what I just wrote into the spotlight of the public square.
The vice-president is a fairly new convert to the Roman Church. He was 35 when he converted in 2019. So, of course that makes him an expert on the Church and how it should relate to the political world, (re. ‘real world’). Within this recent mess that has been created by ignorant people, J. D. Vance has cautioned Pope Leo XIV to stay in his lane. After explaining how the Pope should be careful about how he talks about theology, Vance told the Pope to “stick to matters of morality.” I don’t want to get into discussing what a lay person with a learner’s permit says about someone whose day job is to talk about theology. I really have no skin in that. However, what Vance said about sticking to matters of morality is a perfect example of what I wrote above. It’s not simply Vance being ignorant. What he said accurately describes the result of putting God into a rational sized box.
There are lots of people who think that if one believes in God that they have a direct line to a moral life. Apart from God that’s not possible. I wish that I had a nickel for every time I heard or read someone saying, “If atheists don’t believe in God why don’t they just commit murder?” The allusion being that only belief in God restrains people from acts of immorality. We all know, at least I hope that everyone reading this knows, that’s a pile o’crap. Moral and ethical behavior isn’t contingent on faith in God. Those things are part of being human. We know what’s right and wrong; good or evil. That comes with our skin suits. True, God asks people to act on what’s right and good. God does not cause people to be right or good. But that’s what so many think is what following after Messiah Jesus is all about. They also think that’s the extent of God’s purpose and influence. God isn’t allowed into the public square of thought. Nor is God allowed in the economy or the body politic. God’s only concern is with how we treat our neighbor. Even that is conditional on where we draw boundaries to make clear who our neighbor is allowed to be. This may then be distilled to the idea that, “I know that I’m following God because God hates the same people that I hate. Hallelujah!”
People like Vance want a god that they can control. They want to make sure that god stays in his box. That god is easy to please and isn’t gonna kill our buzz.
The only problem with this idea of God is that, well, that’s not what the scriptures describe. Nor is it what the early Church Fathers said. It’s not even what the Church has maintained as orthodoxy from the beginning. The “god” discovered during the Enlightenment and perfected in the period that people refer to as Modernity is not a god at all. It’s a figment of imagination that lifts human potential and achievement to the level of deity and relegates God to little more than a talisman that we hold on to just in case I need something. The theology that grew up in Modernity created a god who I can use to rubber stamp my own thoughts. If this god is a savior it’s either to save me from the circumstances I find myself in. Or, to save me for some metaphysical world of the future.
But this God is NOT allowed to interfere with the working of the real world.
Vance made that clear when he told Pope Leo to stick to morality. To not get involved with what the adults in the room were doing. His response is not the exception, it’s the rule.
And I weep.
Not for the way that world is affected by such a skewed theology. Even though the world suffers for it. I weep for the way in we have displayed so much disdain and hatred for Who God is. My tears are for the way that the world misses out on the community of faith where God lives. Yeah God is with us each and every one. But God is clearly seen and loved and worshiped in the community that some call “the Body of Christ.” It’s here that we see and experience God’s love. It’s at this place where God enters into the ‘real world.’ God doesn’t live in a box where God can be controlled and used as needed. God isn’t a Cosmic Killjoy whose only interest is who folks sleep with. God isn’t just a “personal savior’ who saves people from eternal conscious torment.
God is Love writ large. God is the One pays the price for the ‘other.’ God is the One Who restores life and gives true freedom. Not freedom to do as one wills. Freedom to be the people that God desires us to be. This God is creatively involved in God’s world. The world that we get to live in for a while. The world where we can express our deepest love for.
The world where God lives with us.
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