Indeed I’d suggest that the fundamental malaise of contemporary Christianity is precisely its substitution of a problem-solving God for a God who is ultimate mystery.
For many people, God is a god who answers my questions, satisfies my desires and supports my interests. A user-friendly god you can access and download at the push of a prayer-key, a god you can file and recall when you need him (which gives “Save As†a whole new meaning!). A utility deity for a can-do culture. Evangelism becomes a form of marketing, and the gospel is reduced to a religious commodity.
The real God is altogether different. He is not a useful, get-it, fix-it god. He is not “relevantâ€, he is the measure of relevance. Indeed best think of God as good for nothing and totally unnecessary, playful rather than practical – and whose game is hide-and-seek: “such a fast / God,†as the poet R. S. Thomas puts it, “always before us and / leaving as we arrive.†The Bible speaks of God as a desert wind, too hot to handle, too quick to catch. A God who is only ever pinned down – on the cross.
It is not that God cannot be known, but that God cannot be comprehended. God is always more than we know, and even as our knowledge of God grows, the mystery of God deepens rather than dissipates, because the more we know, the more we are forced to re-examine everything we thought we knew.
Which is why repeating the doctrinal mantras does not honour but rather betrays tradition. It is an interesting if rarely observed fact that the likes of Arius and Pelagius were actually conservatives who failed to see that a theology of repetition soon hardens into the distortions of “heresyâ€. Continuity is a gift, not a given, to be reimagined and reappropriated in every age.
Kim - connexions
