Richard Rohr is an unlikely Christian superstar. He doesn’t have a megachurch or a private jet or thousand dollar suits. In fact, he has taken a vow of poverty as a Franciscan friar, so he is the opposite of all of those things, the bright lights and the glamor. Yet his dozens of books and daily mediations have a wide following, and while he has managed to stay inside of the Roman church since his ordination in 1970, no small feat for sure, he has also been an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and to ecumenical and progressive Christians of all stripes. I have several of his volumes on my study shelves, and some of you read his daily missives.
There is a quote attributed to him in Anthony B. Bartlett’s 2018 course book on a nonviolent reading of the Bible, though Bartlett doesn’t provide a citation, and a Google search fails to produce one either. Nonetheless, it sounds like Rohr, and even if it is not him, the words are wise and necessary.
Many Christians have to go through a time and experience of atheism, because the God we have been taught to believe in does not exist.
Now, some of you are part of the Hope family for precisely this reason, because the “god” you were taught to believe in as a child no longer made sense. Some of you have moved past that initial rejection, discovering new ways of encountering and understanding God, or better yet, of not understanding God and being okay with that. Some are still in that initial atheism, rejecting that traditional God and yet not quite willing to let go of that definition of what it is to be God. And some just like the music and the company, which is just fine too, though I do hope the wonder I have found in new ways of seeing the holy will rub off on you a bit.
If you have listened even this far into the sermon, then you have probably listened to other sermons as well, and already know that I like Rohr’s quote precisely because I had to live through that process myself, grieving even as I chose to break-up with the abusive God of my childhood, tip-toeing into new relationships, a few dates here, a few there, until I met the right God.
Today’s reading? As traditionally interpreted, that is the abusive God I had to leave behind. Reconfigure this tale ever so slightly, “if you love me you will do this thing that will destroy your soul,” and you have a textbook example of domestic abuse, domestic violence, Abraham with Stockholm Syndrome. Continue reading “God Does Not Exist: June 28, 2020”