Remember when God fit into the neat and tidy packages of our dogma and theology?
Mostly I'm glad to have left that behind. But some days I miss it.
I miss the God I could wrap my head around because John Piper and John MacArthur had distilled him into a nice systematic, consumable product with all the proof texts to boot. I miss the domesticated Jesus who took care of my sin problem and was my convenient friend. I miss being able to draw up the world into good guys and bad guys and believe that if only the right politician were elected they would set things right.
I think I understand why people would love Donald Trump. For a passing moment, I even wish that I could squeeze my consciousness back into that little box and believe that the Donald really could fix everything. I find myself less judgemental and more compassionate to him and his followers when I realize the fantasy they embrace is so utterly human in the face of so much uncertainty.
I think I understand why people would love Donald Trump. For a passing moment, I even wish that I could squeeze my consciousness back into that little box and believe that the Donald really could fix everything. I find myself less judgemental and more compassionate to him and his followers when I realize the fantasy they embrace is so utterly human in the face of so much uncertainty.
Grey is such a hard color to live in. Black and white might be a stark reality, but at least you know what's what. And walls...whether they be the physical ones Trump wants to build, or the psychological ones we all find so attractive when we categorize the world into us and them, or good and bad...well it's not so hard to see why people might be willing to swallow what he says.
Just like the all those people voting in the republican primaries, I miss the security of living behind walls of false certainty.
The world is so uncertain. And as I've grown up and discovered that God defies my categories and concepts, I've felt liberated and yet...I also find this mysterious Divine presence doesn't give me the certainty I long for.
A mysterious world, and an even more mysterious God, bring with them enormous vulnerability.
In captivity for speaking out against the communist state, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said this:
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
It's easy to look at the primaries with a streak of righteous indignation and see ourselves as above falling for the same tricks. But the hard truth is that followers of the Donald are not so because they are stupid, bigoted, or ignorant Americans. We would love such an explanation to be true! They are followers because they are so deeply human, just like us. They are reacting to a message that promises solutions to the things they fear. Donald Trump's resonance is the false certainty he offers. That he is never required to support or justify his certainty is further proof of how desperate people are for it. All he has to do is shout it and seem credible, and at least some of the populace will believe, no matter what contradictions it may otherwise stir up. Yet it's easy for us who think of ourselves as smarter than all of that to construct our own false certainties behind our walls of progressivism.
But what if Solzhenitsyn is correct? What if the line of good and evil runs through our hearts? What if no wall can protect us from what lives within us? What if walls only serve to obscure the reality of evil inside of us? What if false certainties, like a kind of psychological wall, can never protect us from ourselves and never rescue us from the terrifying truth that life and God are uncertain?
Faith - this belief in things not perceived - is hard, and not always a comfort. False certainty feels more comfortable so long as it's the one we find appealing. But embracing uncertainty, which is what I now think faith is, is not so much a quick bit of reassurance or comfort. Instead, it offers us a challenge. We can demand that the world be as we see it - in black in white or simple terms. Or, we can dare to believe that this uncomfortable, disquieting, mysterious, uncertain, grey way of seeing the world is a better reflection of how God and her creation really are.
Donald Trump and his followers are not people of any kind of faith. They may be religious yes, but theirs (and so often mine) is a world view that replaces faith with its direct opposite: false certainty.
But in them I see a sisterhood and brotherhood of humanity as we all attempt to grapple with the deep vulnerability we are confronted with as we live in the mysterious and uncertain nature of God and his universe. We cannot hate them, because we find kinship with them in those same utterly human mistakes we all make when faced with vulnerability.
It seems so simple that it may sound trite, but there is only one way I trust to respond to the swell of support for this candidate. We must meet the fear and vulnerability that comes with uncertainty, with love. We must find new ways each day to love each other generously. For only love can drive out fear. We must look at the line that Solzhenitsyn says "runs through our hearts" and choose love instead of evil. We must choose to tear down walls of self protection and risk love, even for those who seem to be our political enemies. It is only in loving that we will find ourselves free from false certainties and the fear that attracts us to them. And it is in loving like this, that we encounter, but do not solve the mystery of an uncertain God.
Faith - this belief in things not perceived - is hard, and not always a comfort. False certainty feels more comfortable so long as it's the one we find appealing. But embracing uncertainty, which is what I now think faith is, is not so much a quick bit of reassurance or comfort. Instead, it offers us a challenge. We can demand that the world be as we see it - in black in white or simple terms. Or, we can dare to believe that this uncomfortable, disquieting, mysterious, uncertain, grey way of seeing the world is a better reflection of how God and her creation really are.
Donald Trump and his followers are not people of any kind of faith. They may be religious yes, but theirs (and so often mine) is a world view that replaces faith with its direct opposite: false certainty.
But in them I see a sisterhood and brotherhood of humanity as we all attempt to grapple with the deep vulnerability we are confronted with as we live in the mysterious and uncertain nature of God and his universe. We cannot hate them, because we find kinship with them in those same utterly human mistakes we all make when faced with vulnerability.
It seems so simple that it may sound trite, but there is only one way I trust to respond to the swell of support for this candidate. We must meet the fear and vulnerability that comes with uncertainty, with love. We must find new ways each day to love each other generously. For only love can drive out fear. We must look at the line that Solzhenitsyn says "runs through our hearts" and choose love instead of evil. We must choose to tear down walls of self protection and risk love, even for those who seem to be our political enemies. It is only in loving that we will find ourselves free from false certainties and the fear that attracts us to them. And it is in loving like this, that we encounter, but do not solve the mystery of an uncertain God.
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