Lots of people talk about God saving us. They’ll say, “You need to be saved!” I don’t know if anyone needs to be saved, but it seems that many people are trying to save God. At least, they are trying to save THEIR God.
The following is a text version of this posting.
As I listen to people and read religious and spiritual writers of various kinds, I’ve concluded: many people believe that God needs to be saved. There is an intensity and energy about rescuing God. It seems that many people want to rescue or save God from people who hold different beliefs, opinions, and theologies.
A few decades ago, Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong wrote a book titled, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. Spong grew up with conservative Christian beliefs and was taught to read the Bible literally. In his book, he introduces people to ways of understanding the Bible in light of historical and cultural contexts. Spong encouraged the use of sound principles of biblical scholarship. But work like Spong’s is something different from what I mean today by “saving God.” Instead, people trying to save God seem to have an attitude that conveys, “He’s my God. I know the truth about him. And what you have to say about him must be stopped.” (And yes: they always talk about a male God. One thing they want to save is a gender-based identity for the deity.)
Living in Georgia, I always find it amusing when the Southern Baptist Convention notifies a congregation that they are being thrown out of the Southern Baptist Convention for ordaining a woman or having a same-sex marriage. Time and again, the Southern Baptists send letters to churches that are not even part of the Southern Baptist Convention to begin with. It’s like they’re trying to say that they are a monopoly on God. Much the same thing is happening with the United Methodists who are in the midst of a divorce. Conservative congregations are breaking away to start a new denomination because they believe that they have a rightful claim to God and that they absolutely know what is true. Traditionalist Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass are another group that seems to think that God belongs to them. They claim the Pope is heretical and that they are the ones who are the true Catholics. It’s not just conservatives who do this. Liberals, progressives, and New Age groups are much the same when it comes to saving God. But they’re generally not as well organized. Adherents to these various groups seem to believe they hold the truth, the true truth, and that they need to save God from others. This happens today in traditions other than Christianity, including Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam.
I think it’s time for a reality check: if God is really God, then any theology, dogma, or belief we have about the deity isn’t fully true. It’s our best guess. It’s what we understand based on our limited experience as human beings. Singer and songwriter, Paul Thorn, has expressed this more artfully than me. In the chorus to his song, You Might Be Wrong, he sings:
Why do you argue?
Why do you fight?
Everyone thinks
God’s on their side.
Count to ten
Before you throw a stone,
Whatever you believe,
You might be wrong.
I don’t worry about God or whether I or anyone else is following some concept of “God’s perfect will.” We can only ever know the Divine in part. What we know is like a shadow in comparison to the real thing. We may have insights, but nothing more than a few insights based on our limited experiences.
Instead, I start with myself and recognize that whatever I may hold onto firmly, I might be wrong. Moreover, I need to view what’s important to me as simply what’s important today for my path in life. It’s not about anyone else.
As for others, those who insist that the Bible, Koran, or other text must be read in a certain way or that prayers must be said in a certain way or in a particular language, I try to take another view: I do my best to focus on compassion. I will never know what has led some people to rigidity in their beliefs and practices. But perhaps it’s the best way they’re able to hold themselves together on this confusing and fragile journey through life. I try to remember to think that perhaps if I experienced what they had, then I’d also need to be rigid. But I’ll never know what it’s like for them.
God doesn’t need us to save, protect, defend, or rescue the Source of Divine Life. But I believe that God wants us to treat each other well, to be compassionate and caring with each other. While I try to hold the perspective that I might be wrong about my beliefs, I suspect that I’m probably right about this one thing. After all, all the great religions of the world have one universal commandment: do unto others as you would have them do to you. I think that’s the one we need to get right.