GOD, STRAIGHT UP

I had my radio on during the trip home from work last night.

It was a Christian station.

There was “Preaching”.

I know, but it is Lent, after all. A good time for audio self-flagellation. So leave me alone…

Anyway, I was listening to this fellow explaining that his biblical protagonist was in a fix, but fortunately the protagonist knew where to turn. He knew he needed God.

Now there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. It’s dead on, actually. But the preacher didn’t stop there. He made the pastoral point that it was God alone that was needed.

Just God- straight up. He didn’t need a worship service, or a Bible study, nor…whatever. He just needed God- pure, direct and unadulterated.

Perhaps all he meant to say was that its possible to look to all this other stuff instead of our God. True enough. That’s the basic danger of living in a world designed to refract its Creator’s glory. But I don’t think that was where he was going. He was meaning to establish a principled separation between God and …whatever. He wasn’t distinguishing. He was dividing.

This is very wrong headed. I don't mean desiring God, certainly; but believing that He wants to be or that its even possible to receive him, unmediated.

At the heart of our faith is the belief that God made himself available, knowable, and powerful in our lives- once and for all, mind you- through the mediation of a human, creaturely nature. We know our God through the blood, touch, tears, work, weakness and humility of a man. We learned this story through the diligence, care and preservation of many men and women. We heard this knowledge through the tissue, sense and sheer physicality of our own bodies.

Mediated, all of it.

Exclusively internal, intellectual, and totally unincarnated notions may form the conduit to God for some faiths, but not ours. Those faiths would teach that the only true bridge to God is located somewhere between our ears. The doorway is a spiritual one only. But our faith teaches that the gate itself is a crucified body and God himself is seen and served in the outstretched hands of a thirsty child.

The problem is Modernity. I really need to work that into the title somehow. Perhaps, Dappled Thoughts- Damn Modernity or Damned Modernity and Dappled Thoughts. Hmmm. I’ll work on it. But in the meantime it needs to be resisted. Here's a start:

Douglas Jones wrote a series of short essays making a beginning toward a more incarnational understanding of truth and knowledge. I hope you'll read each one. [HT: Derrick from whom I stole the links]

Knowing is Doing
Knowing is Haiku
Knowing is Presence
Knowing is Imaging
Knowing isn’t Syllogistic
Knowing is Tracing
Knowing is Loving
Knowing is Story
Knowing is Community
Knowing is Timing
Knowing is Falling