Dump That God Already!

You fathers--if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?

Luke 11:11 (NLT)

John Piper, a prominent Calvinist pastor and author and one of the heads of the Neo-Reformed movement of Christians that includes luminous pastor-leaders as Mark Driscoll seems to believe in and speak for a misogynistic, bullying, monstrous God that if the Christian Church is his bride, as the bible says, we would need to divorce and put out a restraining order on. Being battered, bruised and subject to abuse is no way to live in a relationship. And it's hardly a way to live at all...

I've already written about Piper's excuses for a physically abusive spouse here, and plenty of prominent Christian scholar/writers (including Tony Jones, Rachel Held Evans, and Scot McKnight) have written about the problems of Piper's all-controlling, male-dominant god/supervillain before. And then this morning I saw that Peter Enns delved head-first into the swarm. And I'm thankful for that. Because this is the sociopath that Piper describes as God based on his reading of the genocides of the book of Joshua:

God is taking life every day. He will take 50,000 lives today. Life is in God’s hand. God decides when your last heartbeat will be, and whether it ends through cancer or a bullet wound. God governs….
If I were to drop dead right now, or a suicide bomber downstairs were to blow this building up and I were blown into smithereens, God would have done me no wrong. He does no wrong to anybody when he takes their life, whether at 2 weeks or at age 92.
God is not beholden to us at all. He doesn’t owe us anything.

This, courtesy of Heath March at marchingonandon

This is what we're supposed to believe about the Hebrew/Christian God. We are supposed to accept the image of (and cower before and accept the fate of) the God of Conquering, Genocidal Joshua over and above the God of Humble, Healing Jesus. I can't. I refuse to. I've seen enough abuse in my clients, in my friends, in my co-congregants, in the churches I've attended and been around, in my community, in my own life. I refuse to bow before a God who demands I love Him*.

via

I used to sing songs like this, in church, to this destructive, manipulative, abusive God. I used to pray to Him and try to find some solace among all the destruction and death surrounding me that He supposedly allowed and even willed. I used to sing lyrics about how He is greater and stronger and able to beat your god into a pulp.

Why?

Is this the kind of God that Jesus presents?

• The kind of God that has to force you to love Him?
• The kind of person that wants us to accept how beautiful He is, but tells you you're contemptible and ugly?
• The kind of lover who treats you like garbage and will only accept you when you realize that you are worthless without Him?
• The kind of husband who forces you to receive and accept His seed? (Does that sound like rape? Because, despite the counter-claims by the authors, it is)
• The kind of man who believes that His emotional needs are supposed to be first and, if there is any left over, you must give that to your other leaders?
• The kind of spouse who gives ultimatums and threats?
• The kind of lover who can only accept you as worthy of His presence when He hides you behind someone else's (His own?) image?

Is this the God of Jesus, or the God of our theology based on a man-centric, cold and cruel world? This kind of God/lover can't be trusted. He is abusive.

Or is Jesus and his God known as a wooer? As the ultimate in Truth. As a healer? Loving all? Creating all? Asking that we love our neighbors AS we love ourselves, and our wives as Christ loved the Church?


What kind of God do we believe in?


Any father who gives His children snakes when they're hungry needs to have His children removed, brought to a safe place far away from Him, and counseled and treasured.

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*I normally do not use gender-specific pronouns to describe God. But this is a different God, a patriarchialistic God, and so needs to be identified as such.

A Gender Apartheid in the Body of Christ

I don't want no daddy with two strong arms
I had one already, he done too much harm
- "The Word Is Love"

This lyric from barely-noticed Christian roots-rock singer-songwriter Rick Elias was written roughly twenty years ago, and I have hardly heard it since. But it's what's been scratching my mind every time I hear this call for a "Masculine Christianity" from church heavyweights like Mark Driscoll and recently from John Piper. I'm guessing by this they mean that the conservative Evangelical Church, specifically, isn't masculine enough.

Despite the fact that it's run almost exclusively by males. This despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of church congregants are female. And are systematically guarded from positions of leadership within the church.

That, of course, is part of the problem for the Masculine Christianists. They see the church as half-empty and want to market it to more men, specifically, more manly-men who like to do mannish stuff. Like MMA, or throw stuff. Or smash. Or yell. Or hit...

But that's not enough, apparently. Reported from Rachel Held Evans, John Piper recently stated, based on his specific culturally and gender-centric reading of the Bible that:

God has given Christianity a masculine feel.

Prayer. Cambodia4kids.org

I'm not sure what that means, "masculine feel." I know that I'm a man, and that there is something good about that, as I - as a male - was made in God's image. But women are also made in God's image. So is my precious daughter. And they're feminine, right? So does Christianity have a feminine feel as well?

I do know that this idea of the masculine feel ties directly into masculine leadership. And that my every experience with Masculine Leadership (as a trait identified specifically as "Masculine") comes up on the pagan side of Jesus' call to his disciples.

Then they began to argue among themselves about who would be the greatest among them. Jesus told them, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called ‘friends of the people.’ But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves.

Luke 22:24-7 (New Living Translation)

This is where many Christian leaders get their "servant leadership" language from. But it's really just language that barely covers pretty much the same type of leadership. We've seen this type of "servant leadership" before. It's another form of what Piper was referring to when he continued his definition of Masculine Leadership:

[G]odly male leadership in the spirit of Christ with an ethos of tender-hearted strength, contrite courage, risk-taking decisiveness, and readiness to sacrifice for the sake of leading and protecting and providing for the community.

Even at its most tender-hearted, this exclusively masculine form of leadership is innately ignorant and sometimes downright abusive. Because, being exclusive it is dismissive of other points of view. Piper himself advises wives to stay with their husbands for the night after he strikes her and to wait until the church opens later that week to deal with the problem.

Not, as I'm sure we're well aware post-JoPa scandal, report all abuse to authorities right away. Not, leave him and then see if there can be reconciliation later. Not, we're gonna open up a phone bank for such emergencies and make sure that all women and children (and even men) have a safe place to turn to in the case of such a regular-occurring emergency.




This is the sound of Masculine Christianity?

From the lips of a White male, trust me when I say this: We are not very good at listening.

We are good at getting a swell head filled with power because that's what we're trained to do from an early age. We are the ones the teacher picks on - especially if we (like I did) go to multicultural schools. Due to institutional and multi-generational sexism and racism, we are the ones assumed to be smart and fearless and bold and decisive. And when the moment comes to shine, we relish the opportunity, lessons be damned. Experience from the wise and from females and from minorities and from the oppressed and from our neighbors be damned. White Papa knows what's best.

I mean, that's what God is, right? A strong, White male God who knows best because he. just. does.

He's a male, knowimean?

I'm sure that Jesus wanted his Kingdom to be focused on a "masculine feel" when he and Paul used words like,

• Poor in spirit
• Mourn
• Comfort
• Meek
• Merciful
• Shown mercy
• Pure in heart
• Peacemakers
• Encourage
• Gentle
• Patient
• Kind
• Without envy
• Does not boast
• Not proud
• Not self-seeking
• Not easily angered
• Always hopes

to describe it.

You want to see a Masculine Christianity? That's easy! It's all around us. It's the current state of the American Church - a gender apartheid in the body of Christ.

You wanna see the Kingdom? Follow Jesus in tearing down these walls. All of them. Power-grabbing. Property-grabbing. Insecurity. Fear. Letting a handful of men (and even women) spiritually lead hundreds and thousands. Tear them down and allow Christ's love for all to guide us to each other's best interests, to become better persons.

Not to be more masculine or more feminine. Better humans.