Images of God, Pt. 1

How we think about God and why it matters

Welcome to this Wednesday’s edition of “The Wild.” For the next few weeks we’re going to explore how we think about God and why it matters. I’m really excited for where we’re headed and for the bonus Friday content planned for this series, so stay tuned. Before we dive in, a brief ask.

If you have been enjoying “The Wild” I would love to hear from you in the comments or in my inbox. We have a pretty solid community here already and it would be a joy to have more interaction. Your feedback would also help with the planning of future content (I’ve got a roadmap for the next few months, but it’s not set in stone). I want to know what questions you have, what stories linger with you, and what you hope to explore with God in the coming months. Finally, if you have been enjoying these weekly emails please consider inviting others to subscribe.

I’m praying that last week’s exercise in psalm-writing was formative and that this week brings you even greater honesty in your life with God.

God’s peace,

Zach

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The Stories We Tell

I grew up curious about God.

It started with my first Beginner’s Bible, featuring White Adam and Eve, and continued through Sunday school, FCA meetings, small group gatherings, and short-term mission trips (if any of this is unfamiliar to you, email me and I’ll send you a glossary and a primer on evangelical Christianity). My mom ensured we were in church together every week and I remember waking up early on weekend visits with my dad to catch him reading and studying his bible with highlighter and journal in hand. Can you believe all of this happened, too, without a single Instagram photo? Shocking.

Despite my curiosity, though, I never gave any real thought to what God might be like. I knew well the version of the story of God I grew up with: that God created the cosmos and humans along with it, that we were meant to live freely together and with God, that some terrible flaw occurred and the price of that flaw was death for all created things and the possibility of existence apart from God. God’s answer to this predicament was to take on flesh, live, suffer, and die as a human being and then, mystery of mysteries, God broke death’s hold by rising again from the grave. In all of this, though, God was more or less for me a series of plot lines. In other words, knowing God was mainly about knowing the important details of the story more than knowing the One who companions us, loves us, holds us, and teaches us.

Power, Absolute Power

Halfway through college, something shifted and I encountered a vision of God that, for a time, enthralled me and sustained me. Only years later did I come to see how monstrous my understanding of God was—but not before taking some theological hostages along the way. You see, the vision of God I encountered was one where God determined everything, where human beings had nothing good to offer and nothing good within themselves, and where God’s love mainly meant God’s refusal to at least not kill everybody. What good news! If you happened to be in the small community of people not on the kill-list then it was incumbent upon you to tell God every day how thankful you were and that you understood you were a very naughty person who only ever deserved lumps of coal and that God was really very quite kind not to have killed you already.

You may be thinking to yourself: How could anybody believe something like that?

Well let me tell you, friend, there’s a lot of appeal in believing just this way. In a world where God determines everything you get to feel right all. the. time. You get to be the one who has unlocked all the mysteries. Why do bad things happen? God wills it. Why won’t everybody enjoy life with God forever? God wills it. Why is the platypus one of only five living mammals that lays eggs? God willed a terrible mistake.

But more than feeling right—feeling certain—you get to be on the winning team with a god who is power, absolute power (I watch a lot of Disney these days). That kind of power is intoxicating and it feeds off certainty until what results is a world where everything is a lie and only you, your crew, and your power-god have the answers. In a world like that, nearly everyone and everything is an enemy to be vanquished or converted. In a world like that nearly everyone and everything is a threat. In a world like that it becomes easier and easier to defend the indefensible, especially if it means defending God. And man, did I do some defending.

Asking Questions

Leaving this theology behind was a journey unto itself and one that informs so much of what I write here at “The Wild.” I’ll share more about that journey in future posts, but eventually I reached a point where I started asking: What if God doesn’t need our defending? What if the scriptural stories depict a God utterly unlike the one in whom I was placing my faith?

In other words, what I wanted to know was: What is God actually like?

That’s where we will head next week (cliffhanger!) and what we will explore in bonus posts on Christian nonviolence and hell (!!!). Yes, you read that correctly. I hope you’ll stick around. In the meantime, and as you consider your own views of God, I’d love to hear some of your thoughts on the questions below (drop a comment or send a reply):

What comes to mind when you think about God?
What does God look like? Sound like?
Insofar as God might have a personality, what is it? Is God demanding? Welcoming? Stern? Patient? Volatile? Compassionate?

As you consider these questions, please enjoy this absolutely beautiful rendition of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” by The Gundersen Family (full set linked below):

Want more Gundersen Family music? Here is the entire Christmas concert shot at Fremont Abbey in Seattle. This performance of the “Doxology” and “Down to the River to Pray” also remains one of my all-time favorites.