THE GOD THEY BELIEVE IN
George A. Buttrick was a former chaplain at Harvard from yester-year. He ended his career as a professor at my Alma Mater before passing away in 1980. When students would come into his office and say, “I don’t believe in God!” his standard reply was, “Sit down and tell me what kind of God you don’t believe in. I probably don’t believe in that God either!” His point was that the distorted view of God they were rejecting was undoubtedly not the true, biblical view of God at all.
That strategy needs to be shifted today, however, because most Americans believe in God, but quite often it is not the God of the Bible. Rather, God is simply a higher power or a spiritual force of some kind, and the idea is that of “my” God. Have you noticed that? The insinuation is, “You might think God acts or feels that way, but that’s not the way the God I believe in acts or feels, because I wouldn’t have a God who acted and felt that way!”
Quite often, there is no sense that God is who He is outside of anyone’s estimation or evaluation. Or that He has revealed Himself and truth about Himself through divinely inspired Scriptures and most supremely through His incarnation in Jesus. Instead, God becomes what they envision, what they idealize, what they desire, sort of like The Notary Public to whatever they wish to make official! As such, God is not above their values or the Judge of their values; rather, He is a reflection of their values!
This, of course, is no God at all. Under such a ridiculous scenario, God becomes a projection of oneself! And so we find ourselves increasingly needing to wade into “personal theologies” that have nothing to do with the Bible, but everything to do with individual tastes and sensibilities. Yes, this truth is not so welcome to most, but it’s the news that they need.
Devotedly your pastor,
Bill Blanchard