Long ago an English writer announced that our God was too small -- and he then listed the ways that Christians generally have bad ideas about God.James Bryan Smith, in The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love With the God Jesus Knows (The Apprentice Series)
is arguing something like this when he suggests we take a deeper look at our "false narratives" that are shaping our lives.God is good.
Smith tells a story when his faith in God as good was shaken, and it had to do with their daughter who, 8 months in the womb, was discovered with a rare disease that would claim her life 2 years later. A pastor met with Smith and asked this question: "Who sinned... you or your wife?" [Groans deleted.]
Smith proposes that what shapes that kind of question is a narrative of "the angry God." "God is an angry judge. If you do well, you will be blessed; if you sin, you will be punished" (40).
How has the Angry-God-Narrative shaped your life? What have you done to reshape the Angry-God-Narrative?
Smith thinks this is the most prevalent narrative about God among Christians today. It is a constant "tit for a tat" God.
Jesus' narrative, Smith proposes, is a different one. God is good; the question is not "who sinned?" as in John 9:2-3 ("who sinned, Rabbi, ... that this man was born blind") but how can God be glorified. Jesus heals the man to show the grace of God at work. Jesus abolished the idea that we get what we deserve. The tit-for-a-tat God is a means of control -- of our world and our life. It is a controlling narrative, however, that doesn't work.
Someday we will see justice and someday we will understand justice. (He interacts here with Augustine.)
We can also take delight and comfort in that Jesus, too, experienced suffering. He believes for us when we struggle.
God is good. All the time.
How is the God-is-Good Narrative re-shaping your world?
After each chp Smith has a section on spiritual formation: this one is on silence and listening to creation itself.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
I may be on a much lower intellectual rung in this discussion but this is what I've been studying lately--God is Sovereign, God is Sovereign in all of his attributes--his love AND his justice. We are God's creation --we are the pot made from clay just how God the creator wanted us to be made. We are responsible to do what God has purposed for us but we all fall short--hence none of us is deserving of God's mercy and grace. However, God chooses to give grace to some and he can choose because HE is the sovereign God.
The god that I would create for us would be only the loving part-he would definitly overlook my small sins and he would punish those who sin against me. That theology makes me sovereign. But, the triune God is Sovereign.
I think the God is angry narrative shaped my early life as evidenced by a 10-year absence from the faith in which I remember thinking, "How can I go back after all that I've done?" The God is good narrative has shaped my years subsequent to that period of my life in that once I came back to faith, I was overwhelmed by God's graciousness and mercy. Is He a righteous judge? Absolutely. Is He a good and loving God? Absolutely. We just tend to emphasize one part of His nature over the other, oftentimes to our own detriment.
I too struggled with this angry-God narrative for many years; a God I could never truly please but could only hope to pacify and keep his anger at bay by my efforts for him. The result was me hiding from God. Yet I never actually left the church - it was where I'd grown up and all I'd ever known. For me, grace is the thing - what drew me back to the heart of God. It is an ongoing journey. I love that Smith aligns his thoughts with spiritual formation. I think our view of God and his transforming work in our lives go hand in hand. I just put this book on my library list and can't wait to check it out. Thanks for this series!
Re posts 12 & 13
God, to be sovereign, does not have to be sovereign in the manner envisioned by John Calvin and his successors and disciples. That view of sovereignty is too limited, small minded, and out of step with Scripture.
As Roger Olson has written, "Calvin clearly taught that God foreordained the fall and rendered it certain. (Institutes of the Christian Religion III:XXIII.8) He also affirmed double predestination (III:XXI.5) and displayed callous disregard for the reprobate who he admitted God compelled to obedience (disobedience). (I:XVIII.2) Calvin distinguished between two modes of God's will-what later Calvinists have called God's decretive and preceptive wills. (III:XXIV.17) God decrees that the sinner shall sin while at the same time commanding him not to sin and condemning him for doing what he was determined by God to do. To Calvin this all lies in the secret purposes of God into which we should not peer too deeply, but it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of anyone who regards God as above all love.
John Wesley commented on the Calvinists' claim that God loves even the reprobate in some way. As one contemporary Calvinist put it, "God loves all people in some ways but only some people in all ways." Wesley said that this is a love such as makes the blood run cold.
Calvin's successor in Geneva, Theodore Beza, commented that those who find themselves suffering in the flames of hell for eternity can at least take comfort in the fact that they are there for the greater glory of God. To paraphrase Wesley, that is a glory such as sends chills down the spine. God foreordains some of his own creatures, created in his own image, to eternal hell for his own glory? Calvin may not have put it quite that bluntly, but many Calvinists have and it is a necessary extrapolation of the inner logic of consistent Calvinism. (Institutes III:XXII.11)"
Regards,
John 1453,
That is exactly what I am talking about.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.