Charley, Frances and God

The State of Florida is principally responsible for illegitimately placing the Antichrist in the White House in 2000. As His way of expressing His great unhappiness with such an immoral atrocity, and to ensure that such a thing does not happen again in 2004, God has-—in less than a month-—twice visited His wrath upon Florida’s evil population; a very real reminder of His great displeasure with them. Those Floridians wishing not to have more havoc wreaked upon them for the remainder of this hurricane season would do well to leave absolutely no question in God’s mind but what the 2004 election will be fair, impartial and anti-Bush!

I pray that at this point I am sensing the reader’s outraged incredulity. The preceding opening statement is not only utterly absurd, but it is bad theology. It is horrible theology! But we need only remember back three short years since 9/11 to the time when spokesmen of the Christian Right were making similar abhorrent claims about that tragedy. Led by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, the outrageous supposition was made that the events of that day were God’s retribution against pro-choice, alternative positions that were contrary to their own narrow and dogmatic beliefs.

Politically correct disclaimers were aired from the White House even as the Christian Right was embraced all the more tightly as a core constituency that would fervently support the unethical and immoral reactions to follow in the name of a God-ordained Holy War against terrorists who just happened to be predominantly Middle Eastern Muslims. Ironically, the Iraqi war unleashed an insurgent Islamic backlash that had previously been suppressed by the intolerant regime of Saddam Hussein.

Religion is figuring in current events on a global scale never before seen – at least with regard to the United States of America – making the examination of its underlying theology all the more critical. Dr. Harvey Pothoff contended that to the degree that persons sense a loss of control over their environment does their theology become increasingly irrational. The two opening examples serve to illustrate this point, of showing how religious beliefs and values can actually be incredibly wrong when they lack a valid theological basis.

Take the first example as one that was intentionally posited in such a way as to generate skepticism. If you found yourself disagreeing with what was said -– that God punishes political corruption -– go a step further by asking why. What is there about this concept that is inconsistent with your understanding of God, your theology? What may make such a process difficult is to discover how intertwined our theology is with our religious beliefs and faith values. In all likelihood these are going to be the sources that have informed us about what God “thinks” and “feels”, and when these are stripped away we find that we have very little or no understanding of God’s true nature without these influences.

Brutal honesty might draw us to the conclusion that, while it doesn’t “feel right” to attribute hurricanes Charley and Frances (and now possibly Ivan) to God’s displeasure with the people of Florida, we just don’t really know what God’s role is. If we have not developed a personal relationship with God -– a personal theology, if you will -– then we discover that we are almost totally dependent upon outside sources in the development of our worldview. Thus we can end up disagreeing with the notion that God punishes Floridians but agreeing that abortionists and homosexuals were responsible for the 9/11 tragedy. Finally we subscribe to systems that make sense to us, or that scripture and tradition have put forth as orthodox (correct), without ever stopping to wonder or examine their theological validity.

The quest of this Growing in Christ ministry is for a “pure” theology, one that is not perverted, polluted, or corrupted by outside influences. For me, this has come to be the definition of “Christ”; that which is theologically pure. In this context I have no difficulty in recognizing Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ. From what I am able to learn of and from him, his mission was to encourage people in their personal relationship with God -– in developing their own personal and valid theology -– and was not to dwell upon the furtherance of orthodoxy, tradition, or for that matter, religion. Wherever this kind of pure theology reveals itself, there is to be found the living Christ!

I hope that I am not coming across as someone so foolish as to advocate throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I am keenly aware of the role that the church and religion played in the journey of faith that led to where I now find myself. Initially, as a devout WASP, I had trouble with John Lennon’s words to “Imagine”:

Imagine there’s no heaven.
It’s easy if you try.
No hell below us,
above us only sky.
Imagine all the people
living for today.

Imagine there’s no countries.
It isn’t hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for
and no religion, too.
Imagine all the people
living life in peace.

Imagine no possessions.
I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger,
a brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people
sharing all the world.

You may say I’m a dreamer.
But I’m not the only one.
I hope some day you’ll join us
and the world will be/live as one.

Now that I’ve had the opportunity to mature theologically, I understand that which at first offended me -– no heaven, no hell, no religion -– as a profoundly christological statement. I shall continue to employ John Wesley’s four-way approach to theologizing -– Scripture, Tradition, Experience, Reason -– as my guide, but will do so with a new and different comprehension that while these very things steer me in the direction of my own personal relationship with God, they do not in and of themselves constitute true theology. In so doing, I realize that my life’s goal will no longer be to become a Christian (or, in the traditional sense, a religious person of any kind), but will instead be to strive toward that Wesleyan ideal of perfection defined as genuinely understanding myself to be a child of God. Amen.