America's Four Gods is more confused than enlightening
Scholars who study Americans and religion do not, as a rule "get" the latter. Whether it's Kevin Phillips railing against the "American Taliban" he imagines in a conservative Christianity of which he has little understanding, or Gallup asking whether those being polled see the Bible as the "literal" or "inspired" Word of God (apparently unaware that the former is a subset of the latter, rather than an opposite; θεόπνευστος- the word in 2 Timothy 3:16 usually translated as "inspired by God-" literally means "God-breathed,")it's often hard to see what formal studies of American attitudes toward spiritual matters really tell us because the questions they are asked are so completely skewed.
Well, it's happened again. Paul Froese and Christopher Bader of Baylor University have written a volume entitled America's Four Gods, purporting to set before us the four dominent views of the Deity in which Americans believe. But the four gods Frose and Bader describe seem rather arbitrary in their characteristics, and to say more about their own personal categories of belief than about the faith of the rest of us.
Froese and Bader say that 28 per cent of us believe in an "authoritative God," who is both very involved in daily life and very judgmental. This is a God who sends hurricanes and earthquakes as punishments for sin, and has been described by the authors as "the God of the Old Testament."
But the God of the New Testament, too, is wrathful toward sin; anyone who doubts that is apparently unacquainted with both the teachers of Jesus and the writings of Paul. And both Testaments present God as benevolent, despite His anger at sin; this is, after all, the God Who led the Israelite slaves to freedom in the Exodus, and who- according to the central affirmation of Christianity- took upon Himself the consequences of His own judgment in order to spare sinners the consequences of their own transgressions. The cross makes no sense except as the place where precisely the wrath of God and His benevolence meet.
Two things seem clear: the "authoritative God" described by Froese and Bader in terms which make judgment a characteristic which predominates over benevolence is not the God of either Testament. But on the other hand, this god bears a closer resemblance to the God of the Bible than any of the three alternatives the authors offer us.
The 22 per cent of Americans said to believe in a "benevolent God" apparently see that benevolence as largely excluding judgment and divine wrath, or at least rendering them secondary and peripheral. While the authors attribute this view to female "Evangelicals," it seems to be essentially the denatured, emasculated, domesticated deity one associates with mainline Protestantism, with the New Age movement, and with Oprah Winfrey. A god of "benevolence" who is without judgment of or wrath toward sin is just as pagan a deity as a one characterized by judgment to the exclusion of benevolence.
Can it be that Froese and Bader are simply reporting two conflicting caricatures of the God of the Bible held by Americans, each fixating upon one aspect of His character to the point of excluding another? Perhaps. But I seriously doubt that many American Christians, even in this age of doctrinal and biblical ignorance, hold views of God as simplistic as either of these. Frankly, I am very suspicious of the percentages of the American population which the authors report as worshippers of these idols.
The "critical God" Froese and Bader report is widely worshipped by African-Americans and others for whom injustice is a major part of their personal experience is relatively uninvolved in daily life, but will render judgment in the next life. This view, too, falls far short of the biblical view of a God Whose judgment is experienced in the consequences of our decisions as well as in an ultimate eternal state. A more helpful- and certainly more biblical- response to the reality of injustice in this world and the appearance of deferred divine intervention would be to view suffering through the perspective of the Cross. The biblical view- a God who suffers with the poor and the oppressed, and makes suffering redemptive- is, once again, overlooked, whether by Froese and Bader or by those who worship their "critical" god.
The "distant God" described by the Baylor scholars is nothing more or less than the god of Deism, who- as described so well by one of my Confirmation students several years ago- "created the world, and then resigned." Ever since Jefferson and Franklin, Deism has held an important place in the American consciousness of the divine. But needless to say, the god of Deism is hardly the God of Judaism or Christianity. Rather, this "watchmaker" god has historically been, and remains, a rival of the intensely involved Deity of the great Western religions. If there is any news here, it's the unprecidented number of Americans who subscribe to the Deist view of the divine- and, while Froeshe and Bader don't specifically deal with this, probably also the unprecidented number of Americans who see nothing wrong or even inconsistent with combining membership in Christian denominations with a belief in a different god than those denominations confess.
The poll upon which Froese and Bader base their study, as well as many other such surveys, clearly shows a phenomenon anyone who has dealt with the American public and its religious inclinations will readily recognize: an eagerness to take refuge in a shallow, insubstantial affirmation that "God is bigger than any one religion-" an affirmation which finally avoids associating any necessary content whatsoever with the concept "God." It's the ultimate cop-out, the avoidance of a commitment to any real spiritual vision larger than the self and its own desires and wishes. It essentially diminishes the divine even as it purports to magnify it; the deity that results is an idol essentially created in the "worshipper's" own image. The ultimate expression of American individualism, it is essentially a refusal to be accountable to anyone or anything except the self- including God.
Ultimately, the "smorgasbord" believer who sees no problem in combining New Age practices or astrology with superficially Christian or Jewish belief, or in arguing for the equal validity of a variety of mutually-exclusive religious viewpoints, is a self-idolator, taking refuge in the very post-modern insubstantiality of his or her affirmations about the ultimate in order to avoid having to commit to anything in particular. It works quite well as a way to avoid substance in spiritual matters without admitting to the vacuity of a spirituality uncontaminated by actual study, thought, or moral and intellectual discipline. Just yesterday, I overheard a woman complaining about a sermon in which a Christian preacher dared to relate Jesus's position on divorce to a congregation which included divorced people. Can you imagine? The teachings of Jesus, of all things, being the subject of a Christian sermon! Horrors!
All but the "authoritative" view described by Froese and Bader- itself an inadequate and sub-biblical oversimplification of what our religious traditions tell us about God- fit into just that banal, self-serving paradigm. Perhaps the ultimate message of this book, and of the study upon which it is based, is that we don't really think much about God, and select out those aspects of our religious traditions which will avoid confronting us with the necessity of transcending the self in our search for meaning, and of being accountable to anyone but ourselves.
Another aspect of Froese and Bader's book needs to be remarked upon: their connection of attitudes toward various social issues they ascribe to the four differing views of the Deity they describe. Those issues simply do not fit with one's attitude toward God in quite the way they seem to believe. Take, for example, the notion that an "authoritative" view of God is more likely than a "benevolent" one to cause a person to regard homosexual orientation as chosen rather than "inborn."
Nearly two thirds of lesbians have been either raped or otherwise sexually abused, and the fact that about half of the identical twins of gay men- who have exactly the same genetic inheritance- are heterosexual renders the notion that homosexuality can be defined simply as either a "choice" or as the result of prenatal influence. This being the case, which of two oversimplfied explanations of homosexualty adherents of differing views of God may hold may be interesting for what they tell us about the relationship of their concept of God to their concept of homosexuality. Alas, their views of one seem as oversimplified as their views of the other.
Another point: while those advocating the acceptance of homosexuality have very carefully (and very successfully) blurred this distinction, the moral and theological issue regarding homosexuality has to do, not with orientation, but with behavior. Sexual orientation certainly is not chosen. But homosexual behavior- like all sexual behavior- certainly is- and it is to the behavior, not to the orientation, that the Judeo-Christian objection to homosexuality lies. The question of how one accounts for the origin of homosexuality has no particular connection to the view one takes of the morality of acting upon one's orientation. This being the case, it is hard to see what connection one's view of God has to the non-theological and non-moral question of mere orientation. The degree to which our society has lost the capacity to even conceive of sexual continence and self-discipline as an option, of course, has allowed the advocates of the acceptance of homosexuality to conflate the two issues in the public mind in a way which says more about our attitudes toward sexuality than toward God.
The attitudes Froese and Bader tell us are associated with the four views of God they describe seem to raise the same question as the views themselves: whether a more complete, multi-dimensional view, better informed by the very religious traditions to which, largely in ignorance as to their actual content, Americans give their superficial allegiance on the part of everybody concerned might not result in more complete and better-founded attitudes toward other things as well. Casual and self-indulgent ignorance, after all, tends to be less enlightening when it comes to social issues than informed thought, just as people who cop out by saying that God is "bigger than any one religion" ultimately have less thoughtful insights on the subject than those who have actually grappled with the alternatives in a manner requiring some effort and some thought.
Well, it's happened again. Paul Froese and Christopher Bader of Baylor University have written a volume entitled America's Four Gods, purporting to set before us the four dominent views of the Deity in which Americans believe. But the four gods Frose and Bader describe seem rather arbitrary in their characteristics, and to say more about their own personal categories of belief than about the faith of the rest of us.
Froese and Bader say that 28 per cent of us believe in an "authoritative God," who is both very involved in daily life and very judgmental. This is a God who sends hurricanes and earthquakes as punishments for sin, and has been described by the authors as "the God of the Old Testament."
But the God of the New Testament, too, is wrathful toward sin; anyone who doubts that is apparently unacquainted with both the teachers of Jesus and the writings of Paul. And both Testaments present God as benevolent, despite His anger at sin; this is, after all, the God Who led the Israelite slaves to freedom in the Exodus, and who- according to the central affirmation of Christianity- took upon Himself the consequences of His own judgment in order to spare sinners the consequences of their own transgressions. The cross makes no sense except as the place where precisely the wrath of God and His benevolence meet.
Two things seem clear: the "authoritative God" described by Froese and Bader in terms which make judgment a characteristic which predominates over benevolence is not the God of either Testament. But on the other hand, this god bears a closer resemblance to the God of the Bible than any of the three alternatives the authors offer us.
The 22 per cent of Americans said to believe in a "benevolent God" apparently see that benevolence as largely excluding judgment and divine wrath, or at least rendering them secondary and peripheral. While the authors attribute this view to female "Evangelicals," it seems to be essentially the denatured, emasculated, domesticated deity one associates with mainline Protestantism, with the New Age movement, and with Oprah Winfrey. A god of "benevolence" who is without judgment of or wrath toward sin is just as pagan a deity as a one characterized by judgment to the exclusion of benevolence.
Can it be that Froese and Bader are simply reporting two conflicting caricatures of the God of the Bible held by Americans, each fixating upon one aspect of His character to the point of excluding another? Perhaps. But I seriously doubt that many American Christians, even in this age of doctrinal and biblical ignorance, hold views of God as simplistic as either of these. Frankly, I am very suspicious of the percentages of the American population which the authors report as worshippers of these idols.
The "critical God" Froese and Bader report is widely worshipped by African-Americans and others for whom injustice is a major part of their personal experience is relatively uninvolved in daily life, but will render judgment in the next life. This view, too, falls far short of the biblical view of a God Whose judgment is experienced in the consequences of our decisions as well as in an ultimate eternal state. A more helpful- and certainly more biblical- response to the reality of injustice in this world and the appearance of deferred divine intervention would be to view suffering through the perspective of the Cross. The biblical view- a God who suffers with the poor and the oppressed, and makes suffering redemptive- is, once again, overlooked, whether by Froese and Bader or by those who worship their "critical" god.
The "distant God" described by the Baylor scholars is nothing more or less than the god of Deism, who- as described so well by one of my Confirmation students several years ago- "created the world, and then resigned." Ever since Jefferson and Franklin, Deism has held an important place in the American consciousness of the divine. But needless to say, the god of Deism is hardly the God of Judaism or Christianity. Rather, this "watchmaker" god has historically been, and remains, a rival of the intensely involved Deity of the great Western religions. If there is any news here, it's the unprecidented number of Americans who subscribe to the Deist view of the divine- and, while Froeshe and Bader don't specifically deal with this, probably also the unprecidented number of Americans who see nothing wrong or even inconsistent with combining membership in Christian denominations with a belief in a different god than those denominations confess.
The poll upon which Froese and Bader base their study, as well as many other such surveys, clearly shows a phenomenon anyone who has dealt with the American public and its religious inclinations will readily recognize: an eagerness to take refuge in a shallow, insubstantial affirmation that "God is bigger than any one religion-" an affirmation which finally avoids associating any necessary content whatsoever with the concept "God." It's the ultimate cop-out, the avoidance of a commitment to any real spiritual vision larger than the self and its own desires and wishes. It essentially diminishes the divine even as it purports to magnify it; the deity that results is an idol essentially created in the "worshipper's" own image. The ultimate expression of American individualism, it is essentially a refusal to be accountable to anyone or anything except the self- including God.
Ultimately, the "smorgasbord" believer who sees no problem in combining New Age practices or astrology with superficially Christian or Jewish belief, or in arguing for the equal validity of a variety of mutually-exclusive religious viewpoints, is a self-idolator, taking refuge in the very post-modern insubstantiality of his or her affirmations about the ultimate in order to avoid having to commit to anything in particular. It works quite well as a way to avoid substance in spiritual matters without admitting to the vacuity of a spirituality uncontaminated by actual study, thought, or moral and intellectual discipline. Just yesterday, I overheard a woman complaining about a sermon in which a Christian preacher dared to relate Jesus's position on divorce to a congregation which included divorced people. Can you imagine? The teachings of Jesus, of all things, being the subject of a Christian sermon! Horrors!
All but the "authoritative" view described by Froese and Bader- itself an inadequate and sub-biblical oversimplification of what our religious traditions tell us about God- fit into just that banal, self-serving paradigm. Perhaps the ultimate message of this book, and of the study upon which it is based, is that we don't really think much about God, and select out those aspects of our religious traditions which will avoid confronting us with the necessity of transcending the self in our search for meaning, and of being accountable to anyone but ourselves.
Another aspect of Froese and Bader's book needs to be remarked upon: their connection of attitudes toward various social issues they ascribe to the four differing views of the Deity they describe. Those issues simply do not fit with one's attitude toward God in quite the way they seem to believe. Take, for example, the notion that an "authoritative" view of God is more likely than a "benevolent" one to cause a person to regard homosexual orientation as chosen rather than "inborn."
Nearly two thirds of lesbians have been either raped or otherwise sexually abused, and the fact that about half of the identical twins of gay men- who have exactly the same genetic inheritance- are heterosexual renders the notion that homosexuality can be defined simply as either a "choice" or as the result of prenatal influence. This being the case, which of two oversimplfied explanations of homosexualty adherents of differing views of God may hold may be interesting for what they tell us about the relationship of their concept of God to their concept of homosexuality. Alas, their views of one seem as oversimplified as their views of the other.
Another point: while those advocating the acceptance of homosexuality have very carefully (and very successfully) blurred this distinction, the moral and theological issue regarding homosexuality has to do, not with orientation, but with behavior. Sexual orientation certainly is not chosen. But homosexual behavior- like all sexual behavior- certainly is- and it is to the behavior, not to the orientation, that the Judeo-Christian objection to homosexuality lies. The question of how one accounts for the origin of homosexuality has no particular connection to the view one takes of the morality of acting upon one's orientation. This being the case, it is hard to see what connection one's view of God has to the non-theological and non-moral question of mere orientation. The degree to which our society has lost the capacity to even conceive of sexual continence and self-discipline as an option, of course, has allowed the advocates of the acceptance of homosexuality to conflate the two issues in the public mind in a way which says more about our attitudes toward sexuality than toward God.
The attitudes Froese and Bader tell us are associated with the four views of God they describe seem to raise the same question as the views themselves: whether a more complete, multi-dimensional view, better informed by the very religious traditions to which, largely in ignorance as to their actual content, Americans give their superficial allegiance on the part of everybody concerned might not result in more complete and better-founded attitudes toward other things as well. Casual and self-indulgent ignorance, after all, tends to be less enlightening when it comes to social issues than informed thought, just as people who cop out by saying that God is "bigger than any one religion" ultimately have less thoughtful insights on the subject than those who have actually grappled with the alternatives in a manner requiring some effort and some thought.
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