In the last few months of 2019 I encountered a number of surprising and disturbing statements about God. What is your response to these words?
- “I am the greatest artist God has ever created.” – Kanye West
- “When I walk into the White House God walks into the White House.” – Paula White
- “…only two nations in the world have ever been in covenant with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They are the Jewish people and the Afrikaans people, that is fact.” – Angus Buchan
Statements like these make claims about God. The words of Kanye, Paula, and Angus all say that God is limited by human constructs of time, space, and value, and that God treats certain people as more important than others. These are outdated, flawed, and dangerous ways to think and speak of God.
Our daily conversations can reveal disturbing beliefs about God. To claim that “I am blessed!” is to say that God has shown me special favour. What does this say about God’s relationship with those who are not equally “blessed”? Click To TweetBut even our daily conversations can reveal disturbing beliefs about God. To claim that “I am blessed!” is to say that God has shown me special favour. What does this say about God’s relationship with those who are not equally “blessed”? To claim that God protected a survivor of a car accident is to raise questions about why God doesn’t save everyone on the roads.
KNOWLEDGE ALWAYS EVOLVES
We generally accept that all areas of knowledge expand through ongoing exploration, experimentation, and debate. Yet when it comes to our knowledge of God we cling to ancient ideas that were developed in very different situations by people facing very different problems. The Bible was written before much of what we now take for granted was known, and before many of our current technologies and struggles even existed. This does not mean the Bible is outdated. It simply means that we need to constantly update how we read the Bible.
As John Shelby Spong wrote:
The Christian story did not drop from heaven fully written. It grew and developed year by year over a period of forty-two to seventy years. That is not what most Christians have been taught to think, but it is factual. Christianity has always been an evolving story. It was never, even in the New Testament, a finished story.
GOD REALLY DOES EVOLVE
For faith to be authentic, valuable, and life-giving it needs to evolve. That’s why Scripture often speaks of the goal of faith as maturity. As our children grow, we expect their understanding of the world to grow with them. For an adult to cling to childish views is to be an underdeveloped person (See 1 Corinthians 13:11).
At EvoFaith we believe that God really does evolve. What we believe about God shapes our experience of God, and so our God (or our understanding and experience of God) evolves as we evolve. Over the next few weeks we will explore some new ways to think of, speak about, and encounter God. The goal will be to grow into a mature, authentic, evolving, and evolutionary faith—an EvoFaith.
What we believe about God shapes our experience of God, and so OUR God (or our understanding and experience of God) evolves as we evolve. Click To TweetYou may find it helpful to reflect a little more deeply on your ideas about God and how you can expand your God-experience. These questions may get you started:
- What are your current ideas about God?
- If you explore those ideas more carefully, what do they actually say about God?
- Are you happy with saying and believing those things about God?
- Are you willing to explore ways of growing your understanding and experience of God?
- What can you learn about God from other people?
- From other religions?
- From your pets and other animals?
- From trees, plants, flowers, and insects?
- From poetry, movies, and novels?
- From art and music?
Please share your stories of expanding your ideas and experiences of God in the comments. Over to you!
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Discussion, robust debate, and respectful disagreement are encouraged. However, shaming, attacking, and trolling are not. Please keep the comments on topic, and kind. Any comments that violate this ethos will be removed.
John, I am not sure that I fully agree with your perception that the said statements limit God I perceive the statement made by Mr West as arrogant The second statement needs to be explored within the context that it was made – – – (I am a Christ follower and believe that Christ is present with me in my life) The statement made by Mr Buchan is a historical fact – – – could the outcome of this covenant possibly link to an evolving God?
Thanks for your thoughts, Joanne. I appreciate you taking the time to engage. I hope you won’t mind if I respond?
Anything we say about God shapes our understanding and therefore our experience of God. And anyone who hears and accepts what we say about God has their understanding and experience of God influenced by us – which I why I always took my preaching so seriously when I was still working in the church. This means that subjectively (in terms of how we experience God) statements like these, that reflect a small understanding of God, lead us into limited understandings and experiences of God. They can do no other.
So yes, Kanye’s statement was arrogant. But, it was more than that. It reflected his view of God – as picking favourites, as valuing some “artists” more than others (do we really think God views one artist over others as the “greatest ever”?). This is a limited and dangerous view of God.
Paula White – if you watch the video of her saying this – was not just speaking about Christ being present in her life. She was saying that now that she is Trump’s spiritual advisor God is in the White House. This is also an arrogant statement, but one that implies that God wasn’t in the White House before (like with President Obama). Again – a dangerous view of God.
Finally, from my perspective, Angus Buchan’s statement is by no means historical fact. I feel quite strongly about this, so I hope you’ll forgive me if the following comments come across too strongly.
Firstly, God did not make the covenant with the Afrikaners at the Battle of Blood River. They made a vow to the God of their understanding. God did not initiate (which is a requirement for a divine covenant) and there was nothing to suggest that God accepted or worked through their covenant. (If victory in a battle is evidence of God’s “blessing” then we would have to say God was in covenant with Hitler, the Soviet Union, and the terrorists who flew their planes into the Twin Towers on 9/11 – all of which is clearly absurd).
So, no it is not fact that God made a covenant with the Afrikaners – they made a vow and chose to believe that God entered into a covenant with them. The belief that this was a divine covenant has historically led to institutional racism. It claims that God is on the side of white people against black people. This was the theology that created the heresy of Apartheid, and this God sounds more like the devil to me.
Secondly God has made Covenants with individuals and nations throughout history. The Bible includes stories of many Covenants, some happening before Israel was even formed. The biblical God makes covenants with people of all nations – not just citizens of two.
Also, Buchan’s understanding of Israel (and of the Afrikaner nation) is nationalistic, which is not how the Bible defines the Israel of God. The “chosen people” of Scripture is not a nation, not a political entity, and is not bound by any geographical territory. It never was. The Israel of God (as distinct from the nation of Israel) was a spiritual Israel populated by those who were faithful to God’s ways and who sought justice, mercy, and faithful worship. Of course the nation of Israel (like all nations) failed to do this – as we see throughout the Old Testament.
I’ve thrown a lot at you – I hope it doesn’t feel like I’m attacking you. That is certainly not my intention. But I cannot disagree more strongly about Angus’ statement. It is not fact. It is opinion – harmful opinion. It is theology – bad theology. And the God reflected there is not the God we see in Christ.
Feel free to disagree with me and to engage more about how our words shape our experience of God.
Thank you for stepping out and sharing! Please don’t stop joining the conversation!! 🙂
Hi John,
As a relatively new-born christian, I do consider myself “blessed”. In so saying, I do not say that I have been blessed above any other person. For me, given the facts of my past and at times, my feelings of being unworthy of His love, I have been given grace and love and for that I consider myself to have been blessed. I believe that any person who accepts His grace and love and strives to live a life in relationship with our Lord is blessed. It might be a somewhat simplistic view but it works for me and does not detract from the enormous amount of work required by myself to improve my relationship with Him..
As regards the quotes offered by those mentioned above, I believe that somewhere they’ve lost the plot. To me there is a level of arrogance in their statements and personally it smacks of them being “better” than the millions of people, like myself, who struggle to maintain a life in Christ. They may have talents that enable them to springboard themselves into the public eye, but we all have talents that our Lord will find a use for. It doesn’t make me better than any other person, just different! To be frank, comments and beliefs of that nature really get my goat!
Thank you for the thought provoking message..
Hi Mark,
Thank you for taking the time to respond, and for engaging with the post.
I wrote a reply, and then realised that I’d misunderstood your comment completely. I’m so sorry! I’ve deleted that comment, and now I’m just saying thank you for engaging, and for sharing your thoughts.
Grace to you!