It seems that Christians are divided into two camps: the first are those that find a gracious God, who is kind and all-loving, merciful, forgiving, and who offers us—purely out of divine grace— life eternal.

And there are those other Christians who find a cranky and rigid deity who has issued divine, immutable commands, who disapproves of the overwhelming majority of human actions and endeavors, and who would certainly condemn everyone to an eternal hell of fire and suffering and pain and sorrow. [And what possible good is that, if in eternity it is already too late to change one’s actions and endeavors? What would be the point? Is it because God wants to see us pay for our sins and errors— committed over four or five or ten decades— forever? If that is the true God, then God is sadistic, and knowing that God would hardly convince me to come near!]

The use of the Bible as the inspired witness to God is out of balance, so that these two camps pick and choose from scripture to create and prop up an image of God to one extreme or the other.

Those who choose the loving God certainly enjoy the freedom and comfort of not feeling condemned or hated. They must certainly a “kind God” for selfish reasons. But it spills over in the generous and liberal attitude toward other people.

My quarrel with those who pick and choose the angry God is that the stretch the biblical word not merely to make the wrath of God large, but also to accommodate a huge portion of their own anger toward other people.

It is tempting to see this wide spectrum of theological difference entirely on the basis of how one regards self and others, to recast or emphasize our view of God on how we first view ourselves and others.

Which God is genuine? Which God is the true God?   Step Three of the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps acknowledges a higher power: “[We] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.” I don’t quarrel with that, in principal, since it allows this program a lot of latitude for those of different faith traditions.  But when these faith traditions are increasingly dumbed–down to the degree of two extremes, which God does one believe in, and to which God does one turn one’s life over? If it is “God as we understood him,” but the understanding we have is of an angry, rigid God who hates humanity, then good luck on turning our lives over to God’s care.

As for me, I would rather put my faith in the God who understands me, rather than the other way around.  My understanding is not perfect.  God’s understand is.  When I read the scriptures, I find a God who knows my weakness, yet forgives; a God who patiently waits for me to come to my senses, a God who welcomes, heals, embraces, blesses, feeds, and gives the undeserved gift of eternal life. This God, says the Christian scriptures, is revealed most completely in the life and the suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

So while, yes, we can find a lot of stuff in the Bible which speaks of God’s disappointment, scolding, warning and wrath, and which expects us to turn, repent, wake up, clean up our act, straighten up and fly right, and while we may strive with all our hearts to do that, God has the last word. And that “last word” is not laying down the law, but giving us the gospel.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

 [This was started many months ago ~ but in the light of the polarizing climate of Christian behavior in the November election over Proposition 8, it seems fitting to post it now.]