{"id":937,"date":"2011-09-12T11:59:56","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T15:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/windowsanddoors\/?p=937"},"modified":"2011-09-12T11:59:56","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T15:59:56","slug":"is-god-a-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/09\/is-god-a-christian.html","title":{"rendered":"Is God A Christian?"},"content":{"rendered":"

R. Kirby Godsey\u2019s new book, Is God A Christian?<\/em>, challenges what the author describes as the commonly held belief among many religious people that the God in whom they believe is \u201cone of them\u201d.\u00a0 People, Mr. Kirby observes, too often confuse God\u2019s religious identity with their own, leading them to believe that God in exclusively on their side in all things, and by extension, hostile to all those with whom they disagree.<\/p>\n

In a world of increasing polarization and rising religious violence, the notion that God stands fully and exclusively with any one group or faith is not only theologically problematic for those who believe in an infinite God, but actually quite dangerous.\u00a0 For raising those issues, Kirby is to be thanked.\u00a0 The likely hood that religion will be a source for as much public healing in the 21st<\/sup> century as it has already been a source of public suffering hinges on this issue, if not exclusively, then at least quite significantly.<\/p>\n

In pursuing this important line of thought however, the author makes statements and pursues a methodology that is itself problematic in many ways — ways which also invite consideration in an honest exploration of this book.\u00a0 Kirby consistently writes about what, for lack of a better term might be called religious fundamentalists or fundamentalist approaches to God and religion, almost as judgmentally and arrogantly as those people often have treated him.<\/p>\n

From the very beginning of the book, for example, the author refers to Christians with whom he has deep theological disagreements, especially on the issues addressed in the book, as \u201cChristians\u201d \u2013 note the quotation marks indicating that that are not really<\/em> Christians at all.\u00a0 Kirby doesn\u2019t even seem to notice the irony of doing this in the midst of stories which inveigh against those very people reading Kirby out of his own Baptist community!\u00a0 What happened to doing to others as you would have them do to you?<\/p>\n

I raise this issue precisely because I share so many of the author\u2019s concerns, and identify so closely with so many of his solutions.\u00a0 Kirby\u2019s book is not simply some academic exercise, but a heartfelt effort to bridge the worlds of deep religious commitment to particular traditions, and the absolute necessity to remain cognizant of and respectful toward other communities.\u00a0 If we cannot figure out how to do both of those at the same time, we are going to kill each other and ourselves.\u00a0 Because the stakes are so high, we cannot avoid asking tough questions.<\/p>\n

It is a matter of pride among people who identify with words like progressive, forward-thinking, and inclusive, to be at the forefront of bridging that divided, but if those terms become synonymous with treating those who think differently as backward, narrow-minded people who don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d God, then what have we gained?<\/p>\n

This book intrigued me and it surely raises questions with which all people committed to any cause, and especially to a faith, must wrestle.\u00a0 It just needs a better, more nuanced ending.<\/p>\n

Is God A Christian?<\/em> answers the question posed by the title with an unqualified \u201cno\u201d.\u00a0 But perhaps by offering a qualified \u201cyes\u201d, the author would serve his important cause better.\u00a0 Instead of undermining God\u2019s Christian identity, one might imagine that God is, or could be, a Christian, just as God is, or could be, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, etc. all at the same time.<\/p>\n

The issue is not what God is, or even how we need to experience the 100 per cent realty that God is as we experience God being \u2013 as long as no one of those identities is thought to exhaust all of who God is.\u00a0 For an infinite God, multiple identities are neither problematic nor incoherent; they are simply loving concessions to a finite faithful.<\/p>\n

As is so often the case, the issue isn\u2019t God, the issue is us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R. Kirby Godsey\u2019s new book, Is God A Christian?, challenges what the author describes as the commonly held belief among many religious people that the God in whom they believe is \u201cone of them\u201d.\u00a0 People, Mr. Kirby observes, too often confuse God\u2019s religious identity with their own, leading them to believe that God in exclusively…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[202,14,174,90,204,203],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-spirituality","tag-christian","tag-christianity","tag-faith","tag-god","tag-is-god-a-christian","tag-who-is-god"],"yoast_head":"\nIs God A Christian? - Windows and Doors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2011\/09\/is-god-a-christian.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is God A Christian? - Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"R. 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