The Banned God
For some, doubt is the first step towards the Divine
We live in confusing times.
Basic human interactions have been drastically altered by technology. We’re connected to people across the world while at the same time disconnected from those in the living room. Work has fundamentally changed for millions over the past year. We’ve morphed into digital nomads, wandering from online meeting room to online meeting room full of black screens and participants who are clearly multitasking. Faith communities, with more failure than success, spent a year attempting to lead their congregants remotely through one of the most chaotic and disorienting times in recent decades. How would the Israelites have fared if Moses decided to borrow a few pages from your Pastors COVID playbook?
During this time of transition and confusion, I’ve noticed a common theme among many of my friends: people are banning god from their lives.
Call it doubt, agnosticism, atheism, disappointment — labels don’t really seem to matter. The unifying theme in these conversations is the individual’s desire to break free from a god and faith that has proven stifling, suppressing, abusive. A god who couldn’t stand up to the complexities and chaos of real life.
As my friends talk about this god they no longer believe in, I find myself affirming their choices. Based on their description, this god was never worth following in the first place.
Our image of God is shaped by those closest to us.
Parents, faith leaders, mentors, friends, a spouse. These people, through their words and actions, give us language by which to define our understanding of God. Does God love you? Perhaps a better question is, did you receive love from those people who made the introduction? Is God good? Can God be trusted? Does God forgive? Nearly every answer to our questions about God is intimately connected to an experience involving people.
That time when your Dad told you he loved you. An experience of forgiveness from a friend you wronged. A sense of community among friends. So many of the experiences that shape our understanding of God involve people who profess belief in this same God.
God is good because Jason — who I know loves God — is good.
God forgives because Mom — who I know trusts God — forgives me.
God loves me because Hailee — who I know follows God — loves me.
God is with me because Dad — who I know believes in God — is present in my life.
We see God through a lens and that lens is made up of countless moments and memories involving people. These people are not God but they have an awesome responsibility to represent and introduce God to us. They are the point of reference we build our understanding of the Divine upon.
So what if those people introduced you to the wrong god?
What if the person who told you God loves is also the same person who molested you?
What if the person who said God forgives became your physical abuser?
What if the person who said God will never leave divorced your mom and abandoned you and your siblings?
If your god is built upon painful, traumatic, abusive, and chaotic experiences, then banning this god is the critical first step towards true spiritual freedom. Henri Nouwen — pastor, philosopher, author — puts it this way: “Sometimes a step out of confusion means a step away from God.”
The faith community has never responded well to those who take a step away from God.
You don’t have to dig deep through annals of church history to confirm this. Through the centuries, those with doubt have been excommunicated, ostracized, even executed. To this day, faith communities are still far too comfortable slapping a heretic label on those who pose serious questions to the established belief system.
Doubt, however, is essential to the very DNA of faith. One cannot exist without the other. Doubt puts pressure on a belief system. It calls faith’s bluff and serves as the litmus ultimate test. A faith worth holding onto will pass the test. A belief system with holes will buckle under scrutiny.
For many of my friends, their crisis of faith ultimately transpired because of a disconnect between the god they were introduced to and the one revealed through Jesus.
The god they were told about would never question the beliefs of the church and wouldn’t be caught dead associating with sex workers. Their god erred on the side of judgment and showed no patience for those with genuine doubts. This deity was so politically affiliated that divorcing him from a party platform would amount to apostasy. The god my friends were introduced to was a god of war, a god of profit, a god who helped those who helped themselves.
Sound familiar? If so, maybe you’re not as comfortable with doubt as you should be.
If the deity you’ve been introduced to looks nothing like the self-sacrificing, others-loving, helps-those-who-cannot-help-themselves God revealed through Jesus, you’ll find that taking a step away — or leaning into doubt — is the first step towards the God your soul has been searching for all along.
