Challenging the "God is a sadist" idea

In all the reading I did in my seminary studies, one of the most challenging works was Naked Before God: The Return of a Broken Disciple, by Bill Williams. Bill was a student at LSTC who suffered from cystic fibrosis - a genetically-transmitted disease that ultimately killed him just over a year after he graduated. The book presents the author as Nathaniel, a disciple of Jesus who encounters Christ both in ancient Jerusalem and in modern-day Chicago, as he's being treated for CF. It's an amazing study of coming from faith to brokenness, and back to faith and spiritual healing. I found an awful lot that resonated with me - for reasons I'm discovering, even today...

But a passage in the book applies particularly to our current topic - trusting God. Williams wrestles throughout his book with "the idea of God as Crazy Boy" - a concept of God that would give Williams cystic fibrosis, which Williams saw as a failure of creation - to have been created broken (hence the sub-title of the book). He struggled with the idea that God had somehow given him both C.F. and faith in a God who could heal brokenness, but who somehow wasn't going to give him quite enough faith to actually be healed of his particular brokenness. For someone like me - who has struggled for years with the idea of homosexuality as brokenness that I seemed to have been created with, but which God would not heal or resolve - it was easy to identify with Williams' struggles.

A major theme in the book is theodicy - how the existence of a good or benevolent God can be reconciled with the existence of evil. And a turning point in the book is this story of an encounter between his wife, Martha, and one of her real-life elementary-school-aged Sunday school students.

Martha Williams had built a powerful relationship with her students - they felt safe and loved in her presence, and they worked hard...and they developed a very special rapport with Martha. That trust, and that love, are probably why this piece of truth got spoken.

These words belong to Bill Williams - and yet they are also mine:

One Sunday, Martha asked her kids what they thought about God. They did what kids usually do when you ask an open-ended question. They rolled their eyes and looked dumb. It always takes some work to get the water flowing.

"Well," she said, going for the most basic thing she could think of, "is he good, bad, or what?"

One of them - we'll call him Timothy - looked at her and said something a lot of Sunday school teachers will never hear, because they are not Martha.

"Well," Timothy said, "God killed his son."

Shut your ears, Timothy! You're listening too well. That fig tree won't bear you any fruit, Tim. You just hold on to the notion that God is good, not evil, and that loving you doesn't mean he wants to kill you. If you let that filth in, you'll spend the rest of your life trying to scrape it off. When they start to bleat their poison in the big room, you just plug your ears and chant with me: God is good. God is good. God is good. That will be our measuring stick, you and me. If anything doesn't measure up to that, you'll know it's broken.

This is your basic wiring, child. You won't be able to bulk-erase it later - take it from me, I've tried and tried. Tim, you just stay away from that piece of hate and don't ever let it touch your heart or you'll end up as crippled as I am can't you see the way I've struggled and I'm still being dragged down to hell....

Don't believe that God is the Devil, no matter what your church says.

God is good
God is good
God is good
God is good
God is good
God is good...
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"We can refuse to believe that the God whose love we experience daily can be sadistic." (McNeill, TACOG, p. 79)
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I'm chanting right with you, Bill.

Thoughts on "spiritual maturity"

I know that everyone else is probably onto Section 2 in the book - but there are some things I guess I've got stuck in my craw from the first section, which I wanted to throw out (up?) for the rest of the group to comment on.

I feel a little at a loss, perhaps, because I'm just starting the whole "outing" business, and my self-image and my theology seem to have their respective knickers in a bind.

I've never been comfortable with a "take what you need and leave the rest" view of the Bible - primarily because it's so easy to do theological violence with it that way. But when it comes to being gay, and being Christian, it seems like such a damned inconsistency that it makes me crazy, sometimes. And it's hard to feel like I have a "mature" faith, when I sometimes swing wildly from "Yes, Jesus loves me" to "abomination" in the space of a few books. (I really wish I had completed The Church and the Homosexual before I started this study, if only because it might give me some firmer ground on which to stand, conceptually and theologically.)

I wrestle with how I can be fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). In fact, I struggle with the way that "fearfully" is translated in the sense of "filled with awe" in the NIV - I much prefer The Message version that says

I thank you, High God--you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration--what a creation!

That always seemed to capture what I hoped the passage meant...and how I have always felt about nature in general, but not myself in particular.

I guess what I'm struggling with is the idea of GLBT "apologetics" - not "the art of saying 'I'm sorry'," but the branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines (thanks to Dictionary.com...). Being able to say (and to really feel) that my gay nature is not God-damned but God-given - and being to express that explicitly - is pretty high up on my "wish list" right now.

I'll be curious to see if anyone responds, and to hear how others of you have made this journey, and what roads or resources brought the most strength or encouragement on your own pilgrimage. If you've got your ID set up, click on "post a comment," and let us all hear from you! (If not, what are you waiting for?)

Thoughts on being in a small group...

In my life's-walk in both the community of recovery and in Christian faith communities, I've found a couple core truths, which I throw out for what value you may find:

+ Wherever two or more gather, God is also present (Matthew 18:20). Small groups are where I first learned how to read the Bible; how to pray; how to meditate. Small groups were where I could ask the seemingly-heretical questions that I would never dare to ask in public. I hope you find this community - both in our gatherings, and in this place on-line - to be a safe place to "take a chance on God."

+ My first ministry professor used to say, "Do yourself a favor - stop trying to save God from God's kids!" What that meant to me was that God did not need me to save God from anyone's ideas, anger, fears, or doubts (nor did God need anyone else to save God from my own rantings). In fact, I'm incredibly grateful to loving, sensitive pastors who encountered me in my anger or doubt, and pointed me to the psalms of lament. Those Scripture passages showed me how Biblical authors managed to question and shout and yell and get mad at God, and yet didn't get struck down for it. (Don't believe me? Check out this classic passage, and this one, as well.)

And lastly, two that really need no explanation:
+ There is nothing that looks, sounds, smells, or tastes so bad that we can't talk about it in love; and
+ Pain and struggle shared is almost always pain and struggle halved.

I'm grateful for these experiences - and I hope you find them as we go through this study together!

Welcome!

This is the home for online discussion, journalling, and sharing reflections on the text Taking A Chance on God by John J. McNeill.

If you've not been a "blogger" before, a couple simple concepts. Each one of us can create "posts," or (if you will) articles on any given topic. Then anyone else in the group can click on the "post a comment" button at the bottom of the original post, and add their reflections or experience. If you see some text underlined or in a different color (like this reference to Fourth Presbyterian Church), go ahead and click on them. You'll usually find that it links to an outside web-page, which may provide additional information, or may refer you to a web-based article. Just clicking the "back" button takes you back to the main blog.

Things work a little backward in blogging - the most recent post is on top, the oldest one is on the bottom. It makes sense, after a while.

Here's a little article on how to post to our blog and general topics on doing posts from the Blogger help pages.

There are two things I want to draw your attention to in the right "sidebar." The first is the list of "previous posts," just to see what's been published most recently. The other is a list of GLBT-friendly links and GLBT-friendly books. If there are links, or books, that you'd recommend for our "hit parade," email me and I'll be glad to add them to the list!

My own experience with blogging is that it's a cross between a discussion group and a journal. I can write on a given topic, and frequently folks who comment either find something in common, or something completely different (which almost always broadens and enriches my own experience).

Any member can post, and any member can comment on someone else's post. You can contribute, or just read...either option is perfectly all right. But the more people that share, the more my own experience deepens - so somewhat selfishly I hope you'll all consider posting or commenting...even to tell me exactly what I'm full of...

Welcome...and blessings to each of you as we begin this journey together!