grumblings
Jun. 15th, 2025 07:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johncomicSome of you may recall that I was raised Fundamentalist Baptist, so that perspective informs a lot of my views of the Christian church in our culture. For years now, I've been trying to resolve what I know of the church to how I have seen it morph over the past decades. Especially now, given that it has demonstrably become a significant political influence. Can't say that I've actually resolved anything, but recently something clicked that explains a few things a bit better for me:
A lot of the jumping through hoops I observed as a child involved watching my church try to reconcile the Old Testament and the New. Because they insisted on holding to both of them as The Word Of God.
One of the New Testament's fundamental messages and dynamics is, essentially, Be Excellent To Each Other. That was stressed to me as the basis of Christ's teachings. But one of the Old Testament's most fundamental dynamics is If You Do Something I Don't Like, You Deserve To Suffer. [The "I" in this case referring to God, of course.] And so my church chose to emphasize things like how Christ's sacrifice serves to mitigate our suffering, etc., in an attempt to handwave that old dynamic away... while insisting that said suffering was part of The Divine Plan.
But, even in my youth, the problem that I had with this was that the suffering was only made "necessary" by God's own choice. He decided that the suffering would happen, and, being omnipotent, He could decide otherwise. He set things up so that a human lifetime of "wrongdoing" [or even simply a lifetime of "being human", as in "born into Original Sin"], "deserves" a literal eternity of torture. Such a response, such "punishment", is as disproportionate as could possibly be. Eternal torture is not justice, it isn't fair, and it isn't kind.
But I was taught that this was how God chose to do things. And I realized that He didn't have to — no one was making Him do it that way. The inescapable conclusion [for me] is that God is not fair, and God is not kind. [Whether or not He chooses to be kind or fair other times, He isn't always.]
Now, it also seems to me [and it's pretty safe to say seems to others] that kindness and fairness are good things. That may well be a fundamental assumption, and unprovable, but there it is. Therefore, God is not good. Not all good.
Which completely contradicts what I was taught, that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good.
Bringing us to today:
I realize that, for decades, Christianity in our culture has been shifting its focus away from Be Excellent To Each Other and more toward If You Do Something I Don't Like, You Deserve To Suffer. We see it in Traditional Family Values, where the man is the head of the house and the woman is subservient to him, and there are so many stories of people raised in a home where If You Do Something Dad Doesn't Like, You Suffer. And the church supports him in this. We also see it in public policies designed to punish the Undesirables.
And where I conclude that, if God is not fair and not kind, then God is not all good.... today's church seems to take the perspective that, if God is not fair and not kind, then fairness and kindness are not virtues. They can't be, because if they were, then God would have them. By definition. So fairness and kindess are not good, and therefore it's okay if we don't do that!
And now America is being run by a man whose primary dynamic is If You Do Something I Don't Like, You Deserve To Suffer. No wonder the church is supporting this, recognizing it as the way things are supposed to go. No wonder they voted for him, when we were all expecting to them to vote for Be Excellent To Each Other. Because they don't feel like going there anymore.
This man resonates with the church's current perspective on the nature of God. Even things like his insistence on being respected and thanked, in situations where most of us go "You gotta be kidding". This has overtones of things like when a disaster wipes out a community, the survivors pray and thank God for sparing them, grateful that He didn't hit them as hard as He could've if He felt like it....
I finally get a sense of why some Americans are saying this man was sent by God. We were looking for someone sent by the New Testament God, and not seeing it. They are looking for someone sent by the Old Testament God, and they got him.
A lot of the jumping through hoops I observed as a child involved watching my church try to reconcile the Old Testament and the New. Because they insisted on holding to both of them as The Word Of God.
One of the New Testament's fundamental messages and dynamics is, essentially, Be Excellent To Each Other. That was stressed to me as the basis of Christ's teachings. But one of the Old Testament's most fundamental dynamics is If You Do Something I Don't Like, You Deserve To Suffer. [The "I" in this case referring to God, of course.] And so my church chose to emphasize things like how Christ's sacrifice serves to mitigate our suffering, etc., in an attempt to handwave that old dynamic away... while insisting that said suffering was part of The Divine Plan.
But, even in my youth, the problem that I had with this was that the suffering was only made "necessary" by God's own choice. He decided that the suffering would happen, and, being omnipotent, He could decide otherwise. He set things up so that a human lifetime of "wrongdoing" [or even simply a lifetime of "being human", as in "born into Original Sin"], "deserves" a literal eternity of torture. Such a response, such "punishment", is as disproportionate as could possibly be. Eternal torture is not justice, it isn't fair, and it isn't kind.
But I was taught that this was how God chose to do things. And I realized that He didn't have to — no one was making Him do it that way. The inescapable conclusion [for me] is that God is not fair, and God is not kind. [Whether or not He chooses to be kind or fair other times, He isn't always.]
Now, it also seems to me [and it's pretty safe to say seems to others] that kindness and fairness are good things. That may well be a fundamental assumption, and unprovable, but there it is. Therefore, God is not good. Not all good.
Which completely contradicts what I was taught, that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good.
Bringing us to today:
I realize that, for decades, Christianity in our culture has been shifting its focus away from Be Excellent To Each Other and more toward If You Do Something I Don't Like, You Deserve To Suffer. We see it in Traditional Family Values, where the man is the head of the house and the woman is subservient to him, and there are so many stories of people raised in a home where If You Do Something Dad Doesn't Like, You Suffer. And the church supports him in this. We also see it in public policies designed to punish the Undesirables.
And where I conclude that, if God is not fair and not kind, then God is not all good.... today's church seems to take the perspective that, if God is not fair and not kind, then fairness and kindness are not virtues. They can't be, because if they were, then God would have them. By definition. So fairness and kindess are not good, and therefore it's okay if we don't do that!
And now America is being run by a man whose primary dynamic is If You Do Something I Don't Like, You Deserve To Suffer. No wonder the church is supporting this, recognizing it as the way things are supposed to go. No wonder they voted for him, when we were all expecting to them to vote for Be Excellent To Each Other. Because they don't feel like going there anymore.
This man resonates with the church's current perspective on the nature of God. Even things like his insistence on being respected and thanked, in situations where most of us go "You gotta be kidding". This has overtones of things like when a disaster wipes out a community, the survivors pray and thank God for sparing them, grateful that He didn't hit them as hard as He could've if He felt like it....
I finally get a sense of why some Americans are saying this man was sent by God. We were looking for someone sent by the New Testament God, and not seeing it. They are looking for someone sent by the Old Testament God, and they got him.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-15 03:19 pm (UTC)Thanks for posting this.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-15 10:45 pm (UTC)