God A

Brian McLaren from A Generous Orthodoxy (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2004)

Again, beyond these masculine/feminine issues, the experience of God in Jesus was so powerful that it forever transformed what followers of Jesus meant when they said the word God. What was God like? What was God about? When they thought about what they had learned, seen, and experienced in Jesus, their understanding was revolutionized. Eventually, after a few centuries of reflecting on God as revealed and experienced through Jesus (in the context of some major controversies with varied forms of Greek philosophy), the church began to describe God as Father-Son-Spirit in Tri-unity or the Trinity. For them, God could no longer be conceived of merely as “God A,” a single, solitary, dominant Power, Mind, or Will, but as “God B”, a unified, eternal, mysterious, relational community/family/society/entity of saving Love.

Think of the kind of universe you would expect if God A created it: a universe of dominance, control, limitation, submission, uniformity, coercion. Think of the kind of universe you would expect if God B created it: a universe of interdependence, relationship, possibility, responsibility, becoming, novelty, mutuality, freedom. I’m not sure which comes first – the kind of universe you see or the kind of God you believe in, but as a Christian who believes in Jesus as the Son of God, I find myself in universe B, getting to know God B.

This is why, for starters, I am a Christian: the image of God conveyed by Jesus as the Son of God, and the image of the universe that resonates with this image of God best fit my deepest experience, best resonate with my deepest intuition, best inspire my deepest hope, and best challenge me to live with what my friend, the late Mike Yaconelly called “dangerous wonder,” which is the starting point for a generous orthodoxy. (pp. 84-85)

Apparently, the author believes that it took the church “centuries” to discover that God was a good guy. By implication the god that the church believed in was dominant, coercive, and controlling, but then after dealing with some major controversies and with some Greek philosophy to help, the church discovered Jesus, the loving God B. I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize this God A. It seems to me that He is a construct of the author based upon a distortion of the God of the Bible generated by shallow and dishonest men. Somehow, it seems difficult to believe that the first century Christians would recognize this God A, either. I’m beginning to sense that this entire book is designed to set up straw dummies so that they may be easily knocked over. The author's God A is a straw dummy, is he not?

Consider this possibility: God B has already created this “universe B”. It was called the Garden of Eden. Something bad happened there if I recall. Now, I fully expect to participate in this ideal state-of-being someday, but please understand that if God B creates it without dealing with evil, then we will do the same thing over and over and over again. Perhaps we need to consider that Brian’s God A and God B are the same God, but God A is not described correctly by the author’s pejorative-like adjectives. There will be a day when God A can no longer contain His rage, will turn to His Son God B and release Him to return with the armies of Heaven to deal with the enemies of His beloved Church, and we who belong will forever dwell in Brian’s Universe B.

A distortion of the Truth does not deny the Truth. God A hates evil.