The god that right-wing "Christians" invented in their image

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Scooter
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The god that right-wing "Christians" invented in their image

Post by Scooter »

The Terribly Tiny God of MAGA Christians

APRIL 11, 2019 / JOHN PAVLOVITZ

I feel sorry for professed Christians who support this President.

They have a profound and fundamental spiritual problem: their God is too small.

They passionately worship a deity made in their own image: white, American, Republican, male—and perpetually terrified of just about everything: Muslims, immigrants, gay children, Special Counsel reports, mandalas, Harry Potter, Starbuck holiday cups, yoga, wind turbines, Science—everything.

Their God is so laughably minuscule, so fully neutered of power, so completely devoid of functioning vertebrae that “He” cannot protect them from the encroaching monsters they are certain lurk around every corner to overwhelm them.

MAGA Christians sure put up a brave face, I’ll give them that. They shower this God with effusive praise on Sunday mornings, they sing with reckless abandon in church services about Him, they brazenly pump out their chests on social media regarding His infinite wisdom, they defiantly declare this God’s staggering might at every opportunity—but their lives tell the truth: They believe He is impotent and scared and ineffectual. You can tell this because they insist on doing all the things that a God-sized God would simply do as part of the gig.

They need to be armed to the teeth at all times because they don’t really believe God will come through to defend them in a pinch—and will always be outgunned.

They want to change gay couples and transgender teenagers themselves, because they don’t trust God to work within people as He desires. (Apparently God keeps making LGBTQ people, which really pisses them off.)

They want to stockpile and horde wealth, health insurance, and opportunity—because this is a zero sum game; because the God they claim turned water into wine, and fed thousands with a few fish and some leftover bread—can’t make enough for everyone.

They are obsessed with building a wall and defending a border and turning way refugees—because their God isn’t generous or smart or creative enough to help them figure out how to welcome and care for everyone who requires it.

They want no other religious traditions to have a voice, because their insecure and terribly tiny God is mortally threatened by such things.

MAGA Christians’ daily existence testifies that their God is a microscopic, myopic coward, who has appointed them to morally police a world He cannot handle or is not equipped to direct and renovate. That’s pretty sad.

In short, their God isn’t a God worth believing in or worshiping—which is why they have to play God while they’re alive. It’s why they are furrowed-browed and white-nuckling their journey here—not content to let Jesus take the wheel for fear he’d drive them outside their gated community and into the hood and ask them to get out and care for the people they’re so used to condemning.

If you’re going to have a God, it may as well be right-sized. The world deserves this.

People deserve a God who is bigger than Franklin Graham’s God and Mike Pence’s God and Sarah Huckabee’s God. Their God is small and terrified—and it suspiciously resembles them.

People deserve a God who so loves the world, not a God who believes in America First; whose creation begin without divides and borders and walls, because there is only a single, interdependent community.

People deserve a God who touched the leper and healed the sick and fed the starving and parted the seas and raised the dead—not a quivering idol who drafts bathroom bills and social media crusades against migrant families.

People deserve a God who is neither white nor male nor cisgender-heterosexual, nor Republican—because any other God isn’t big enough to bear the title or merit any reverence.

MAGA Christians believe in God earnestly, pray to God passionately, serve God with unflinching fervor. The problem is their God is too small, and as long as they are oriented toward such a tiny, useless deity—they will continue to be compelled to do for God what they believe God should be doing, but can’t or won’t.

I feel sorry for them and for the world that has to be subjected to their pocket-sized theology when there is an expansive space waiting.

I hope and pray that these people soon find a God who is big enough so that they stop living so small.

For their sake—and for ours.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

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Econoline
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Re: The god that right-wing "Christians" invented in their i

Post by Econoline »

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
  • — Anne Lamott
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
God @The Tweet of God

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Re: The god that right-wing "Christians" invented in their i

Post by MGMcAnick »

I never heard of John Pavlovitz until I googled him after reading his name here minutes ago. He is described as a liberal Christian pastor. Boy I'll say. I probably qualify as a liberal Christian, but I would certainly stop short of calling ANYONE a god, (note my small g) especially a narcissistic jerk who happens to inhabit the white house. It is no wonder Rev Pavlovitz was fired from at least one church. I don't know anyone who thinks Drumpf is a god, big or small. I think Rev Pavlovitz is misguided, regardless of his beliefs.
A friend of Doc's, one of only two B-29 bombers still flying.

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: The god that right-wing "Christians" invented in their i

Post by Bicycle Bill »

I'll agree with you insofar as Trump does not think he is a god (again, small 'g'), but if other people want to treat him like the pharaohs of ancient Egypt (powerful rulers who were considered to be gods), or the emperor of Japan (again, a powerful ruler who commanded the unswerving loyalty of his subjects and was considered to be a god), or even the Dalai Lama (who is considered to be a direct lineal descendant of a god), he ain't gonna do anything to change their mind.

After all, like the line out of "Ghostbusters" —
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The problem, as I see it, is that if enough people begin to tell him he's a god, he'll start believing it himself.
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-"BB"-
Yes, I suppose I could agree with you ... but then we'd both be wrong, wouldn't we?

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The god that right-wing "Christians" invented in their image

Post by RayThom »

Image
With pundits asking, “How did he win?” this book explores whether there was a supernatural element involved. Christian leaders prophesied before the election that God had raised up Donald Trump to lead the nation through a time of crisis. But could this billionaire reality-TV star actually convince the voters he was for real? If so, what is God doing now not only in Donald’s Trump’s life, but also in the nation?

Trump is an enigma, a brash self-promoter, casino owner, and man of the world. Yet he is also a devoted husband and father who has surrounded himself with men and women of faith and has made religion a key component of his image.

God and Donald Trump is a powerful first-person account of one of the most contentious elections in American history, with exclusive interviews and insightful commentary from the men and women who were there."
Such garbage. Sad.
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“In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among us, a greater sincerity.” 

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Re: The god that MAGA "Christians" invented in their image

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

The article makes telling points about the actions of some people that, I agree, utterly belie the faith-claims that they make. By their works you shall know them. It's also correct that for many Christians, God is conceived to be rather small - praised as unlimited and then put into a rigid box.

I am a Christian. I oppose Donald Trump, support real restrictions on firearms, reject racism, sexism, and gender bias in employment/opportunity/etc. I believe abortion is murder; would support (some) laws opposing it but believe the current law is to be obeyed and not a target for violent opposition. I also admit to prejudices of my own that are at times a struggle to overcome. I'm reasonably assured y'all would consign me to "right-wing" - though whether that means politically or religiously I am not sure. (Or both).

I object to the equation "right-wing = MAGA". The article is about MAGAlomaniac Christians, not "right-wing" Christians IMO. As someone recently indicated, you don't have to be MAGA to be right-wing, but you do have to be right-wing to be MAGA.

One error: "Apparently God keeps making LGBTQ people, which really pisses them off"

The MAGAXIANS I know personally (they all unfriended me on Facebook :o ) do not believe that God "makes" LGBTQ people any more than they believe God "makes" immoral people of any type - they believe that all people enter life in an immoral state. That is, all have fallen short and there is no-one good, not even one. That's why all people, including Christians, need the forgiveness of God, an act of grace and not a reward for good works. They believe God despairs over any sinner, including they themselves, who does not (a) repent of their sin and (b) stop doing it. That's a belief that annoys many people somewhat and some people a lot.

Whether or not such a belief is true/false rational/illogical is not the point. Internal consistency is at issue.

It is indeed reprehensible when Christians (and MAGAXIANS) turn their beliefs into actions that are opposed to the entirety of God's message. Because "I" happen to believe that "x" is a sin, it becomes my job to punish that sin? No; the opposite is true. If I believe that all are sinners, I should, like the unbounded God I seek to serve, be kind, merciful, gracious and loving to them, regardless of the sin. That is easier stated than enacted.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Re: The god that right-wing "Christians" invented in their i

Post by Big RR »

It is indeed reprehensible when Christians (and MAGAXIANS) turn their beliefs into actions that are opposed to the entirety of God's message. Because "I" happen to believe that "x" is a sin, it becomes my job to punish that sin? No; the opposite is true. If I believe that all are sinners, I should, like the unbounded God I seek to serve, be kind, merciful, gracious and loving to them, regardless of the sin. That is easier stated than enacted.
Excellent point Meade, and one that is sadly lost on many people who call themselves "Christian". Indeed, many religious people of all types, not only Christians, fall in the camp of those who feel they have a divine right to condemn and punish sin. Some do so violently, some by other means (from hurtful words to outright condemnations, etc.), but all try to use their religion to ultimately elevate themselves rather than to serve the world and their fellow man.

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