We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
God is Not a Monster
God is not a monster. There are monster god theologies, but they are mistaken.
Accusation and scapegoating, the ravages of war and the wages of sin, these are monsters. The cruel vagaries of chance — until they are tamed by Christ in the age to come — may fall upon us as monsters. But God is not a monster. God is love. Jesus reveals this to us. If we move against the grain of love we will suffer the shards of self-inflicted suffering — and we can call this the wrath of God if we like — but the deeper truth remains: God is love.
So don’t sit in the dark with the tormenting idea that God somehow harbors malice and ill-will toward you. It’s all a cruel fiction. Turn on the light of Christ and realize that the monster you imagined does not exist. Who exists is Jesus. And he is the one who says to you, “It is I, be not afraid.”
You can find the whole post here.
Photo credit: ScottSimPhotography / Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND
Category: General
Tags: Attributes of God, Character of God, God is Love, Jesus
Related Reading
Why Bart Ehrman Doesn’t Have to Ruin Your Christmas (Or Your Faith) Part 6
This is the sixth of several videos Greg put together to refute Bart Ehrman’s claims published in the article What Do We Really Know About Jesus? In this segment, Greg addresses the apparent discrepancies in the genealogies of Luke and Matthew and the implausibility of the idea that they were simply fabricated. We’ve been hearing that people are using…
Revolting Against Classism
All fallen societies and religions have a tendency to rank people according to class. All have ways of separating the insiders from the outsiders, the holy from the unholy and the more important people from the less important people. Jesus revolted against classism by the way he lived, a way defined by the Kingdom. Now,…
Why do some of Jesus’ parables depict God in violent ways?
Greg deals with the question of what it means that some of Jesus’ parables seem to depict God in violent terms. In addition to getting an answer to this question you’ll be treated to a window into Greg’s graceful way of moving through the world. Really classy. Enjoy!
The Cruciform Center Part 4: How Revelation Reveals a Cruciform God
I’ve been arguing that, while everything Jesus did and taught revealed God, the character of the God he reveals is most perfectly expressed by his loving sacrifice on the cross. Our theology and our reading of Scripture should therefore not merely be “Christocentric”: it should be “crucicentric.” My claim, which I will attempt to demonstrate…
God is Different Than You Think
The revelation of “[a] God humiliated even unto the cross,” as Pascal put it, flies in the face of what most Jews of Jesus’ time, and of what most people throughout history, have expected God to be. In this light, we can discern the thematic centrality of the cross in Jesus’ many teachings that reverse…
Making Resolutions? Consider This!
So, this is the time of year when we all look back at the year that is passing and look ahead to the new year in front of us. If you’re considering a New Year’s resolution, we wanted to make a tiny suggestion for your consideration. Greg has been fleshing out the ReKnew Manifesto in his…