Monthly Archives: September 2016

57-Is God mad at you? Part 4

 

I decided to put off the conclusion of this post one week so that I can provide for you the necessary framework to really gain the wider perspective I am providing in this series. We will never gain a solid theology without a solid anthropology. John Calvin said: “Without the knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God.” For this reason, I am providing you the framework to discern our False self from our True self. Our ego, our pride, our false self promotion are not who we “truly” are, they are who we are in our falseness. In this post I unpack Merton’s words; “The false self is the self that God can know nothing about.” and why that is pivotal in grasping the other half of Jesus’ teaching about justice and distinctions.

 

 

56- Is God mad at you? Part 3

 

We’ve now explored how we came to believe that God is mad, and we have also seen why so many people need to have an angry God. It all comes down to our understanding of JUSTICE. In this weeks post and podcast, I share Jesus’ parable on the workers in the vineyard and how this is a metaphor that explains the justice of Heaven. Restoration and retribution are two very different forms of justice and Jesus explains that the closer you are to one, the further you are to the other. This throws a huge kink in our religious systems if we don’t have the pieces to sort it all out. Fortunately, Jesus give us those in next weeks post.

 

55- Is God mad at you? Part 2

 

We continue this series and explore why some people want and even need an angry God. In this podcast you’ll be shown how we take our dualistic approach to the world and create either/or, binary systems that pit us against each other instead of move us toward oneness. We hold tightly to our distinctions because we believe deep down that God will be mad if we hold them otherwise. This has a debilitating affect on our own spiritual growth and on the entire world.

54-Is God mad at you? part 1

 

 

The subject of whether God is mad at us is highly divisive. People feel very strong about their perspectives. Is God angry with us? If so, why? In this post I begin a short series where I take on this subject by examining the implications of having an angry God, namely that such a being requires appeasement. Appeasement=religious practice. If we then look at substitutionary atonement in the Christian faith, we need to ask a sobering question: “If Jesus bore the punishment for all our sins, how can God still be mad at us?” Our answer is a gauge telling us how deep we are within a culture or institution of fear.