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Jim's PERSPECTIVEJanuary 27, 2014He speaks, and listening to his voice, new life the dead receive. From “O, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” by Charles Wesley “Conversational Relationship” with God is a term I first heard from the late Dallas Willard, author of Hearing God, The Spirit of the Disciplines, The Divine Conspiracy and others. The idea that God talks to, or even wants to talk to, his people—individuals—is found throughout scripture from beginning to end, literally from Genesis to Revelation. So, it seems to me, there is a good deal of precedent for this. But, in my mind, it is not because there is a literal or spiritual precedent, or even because I was raised in a religious tradition that believes such things are possible that I make the claim that God has spoken to me. And, obviously, my story begs a number of questions concerning both God’s nature and my own. I am totally aware of how presumptuous—if not ridiculous—my claim may sound to certain ones who would dismiss out-of-hand what I say, or who would not take what I have said seriously. “Certain ones” will include atheists, agnostics, Deists (and other rationalists), fundamentalist Christians, and even good middle-of-the-road orthodox Christians. Atheists and agnostics alike do not believe that God speaks to people, period. “There is no God,” says the atheist. “There is probably no God,” says the agnostic. No use trying to convince them that non-existent being speaks to being. Deists, who are believers in a Creator or Designer, for the most part do not believe that God is involved in the affairs of his creation. They are the ones who believe that God, like the classic watchmaker analogy, sets forces in motion according to natural laws and then takes a hand-off approach, allowing the creation to run on its own. Fundamentalist Christians do not believe that God speaks in any form beyond his written Word, the Bible, because they are Dispensationalists and Cessationists. “Dispensationalism” is the belief that religious history is divided into “time periods” that are characterized by a covenant that God makes with his people. When people violate the terms of the “contract,” or covenant (and they always do), God enacts a new covenant and thus creates a new “dispensation.” For most Fundamentalist Christians, the dispensation of “the Church,” and, subsequently, supernatural or miraculous acts of the Holy Spirit, come to an end with the death of the last apostle, hence the term “cessationist.” “Cessationism” is the belief that in today’s world God does not do those things that he did in “Bible days” through prophets in the Old Testament and apostles in the New Testament. This is a simplistic explanation for why certain believers are of the opinion that the Bible is now the only way in which God speaks to His people, and another reason why these folks have to have a Bible that is absolutely perfect. Parenthetically, I keep asking the question how anyone could possibly expect perfection out of imperfection, given that God is trying to get a perfect book from flawed humans, but I have never received a competent or convincing answer. Some good middle-of-the-road “orthodox” Christians believe, at least hypothetically, that God speaks, or perhaps has spoken in exceptional cases. He just would never speak to the likes of me. I don’t blame them. I actually share their feeling, although not their belief. The belief that underlies such a feeling is that, on one side of the coin, God only speaks to “special” or “holy” people, like St. Francis or the Dalai Lama. And on the other side of the coin, God is too busy with more important things such as running the universe, to fool with the day-to-day concerns of infinitesimally small and insignificant humans. Moreover, the problem of evil—natural and moral—in the world is a huge deterrent for more than a few. Many wouldn’t actually say aloud, but they would perhaps at least feel that, “As long as there as tsunamis, deformities, diseases, death, oppression, war, pestilence, starvation, predatory animals (including humans) and religious conflicts, I will never believe that God has anything to say to persons holy or otherwise, and especially in relation to the mundane affairs of this world." I would argue that if God speaks to and through jack-asses, as he does in Number 22:28, then he would speak to and through someone like me. But, seriously, and as I have said many times and in many places, if God were waiting to find for his uses a truly holy and worthy person before speaking or revealing himself, he would be waiting for eternity. And as for the “hierarchical” understanding that God should be more concerned with wars and suffering and the like—long before ever getting down to where we are—I would say that such an understanding actually reflects a misunderstanding of the nature and goodness of God. The claim to knowing or declaring God’s goodness and love need not conflict with the fact that evil exists. Put another way, the fact that evil does exist does not prove anything about the nature of God. I think that all Christians believe that evil in the world is the result of “fallen-ness.” The account of the Fall in Genesis is too complicated a subject to deal with here. I simply would say to those who don’t believe there was—or is—a Fall, “How do you account for your own fallen nature?” And for those who would retort, “I don’t believe that I am fallen,” I would answer that the fact that you don’t see it is in itself a result of the Fall. It’s called spiritual blindness. That you don’t see it or know it doesn’t mean that I don’t. “Theodicy” is a form of theology that attempts to justify the chaos and disorder in the world with a good, loving, and all-powerful God. I do not have a satisfactory answer for those who are trying to reconcile the natural and human evil in the world with a benevolent, omnipresent Deity. And yet my claim is that God is, in fact, loving and kind, and that God cares deeply about the well-being, happiness, peace, joy, and fulfillment of his people. Furthermore, God has a good purpose and plan for “those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). This is my experience, this is my story, and I’m sticking to it. Yet I understand that my child could die, that I could contract a terminal illness, that I could be disabled or maimed in any number of accidents, that I could (in fact, I have) suffer numerous disappointments and set-backs in life, and that I am—in my human nature, not in my spiritual nature— basically a sinful and broken human being. And still I would say that none of these darker forces and realities indict or impugn the God-who-is. I cannot prove the love, goodness, omnipresence or experience of having heard from God, nor do I care to. If I could out-argue everyone who disagrees with my claims, it would not necessarily influence, convince, or convert anyone. What others—including my own peers, family and closest friends—do and don’t do, think and don’t think, or say and don’t say, will not affect what I do, think, and say. It’s not my job to convince or convert. It is simply to tell and witness to what I know, what I have seen, and what I have heard. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convince and convert. In the meantime, I am going to keep talking to, and listening for, God’s voice because I, like Charles Wesley and a host of others, know the sound of it. - Jim Radford |
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©2013 Jim Radford. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.
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