We Worship a God of Love,
Not a God of Wrath - Part 1
by R.E. Slater
GOD
We worship a God of love, not a God of love and wrath.
God is one in His being and essence, not two.
His love instructs His responses.
His attributes.
His actions.
God is not a dipolarity. Not two psychic polar ends of the the same God.
God is love through and through and through and through.
Western Christianity requires a binary system good and bad, love and wrath, hope and despair.
But Christianity is a singularity through and through and through and through.
God is not dipolar. God is One.
THE BIBLE
If one reads a literal bible with a God of love and wrath this is classic theism.
If one reads the bible as a collection of narratives of people asserting who God is based upon their experiences than you're reading a bible full of conjectures where some are more right than others.
A non-literal bible is neither spiritualized, symbolized, or iconized in its reading. It's the common sense reading of ancient beliefs about God and God's action in the world.
In this sense, we read the bible as redactors attempting to find the common thread of a complicated idea through the moral and mortal eyes of collected beliefs of ancient societies.
It is too easy to discount the bible as ancient Hebrew myths and legends. The bible is a collection of literary beliefs about God no more nor less than the religious collections of beliefs about God today.
Beliefs require redacting.
Beliefs are only true if we make them so. But many beliefs are untrue, harming, and inaccurate.
Theology is the art of deciphering beliefs - whether true or not; whether pointing to the right way or not.
Theology is not a literal reading of the bible but a redactive reading of the bible.
DIVINE INSPIRATION
Inspiration is God speaking to all kinds of people in all kinds of ways.
God didn't speak only to the premetal and metal ages (bronze, iron, steel) of the BC/BCE eras.
God has been speaking to all of creation... including mankind, throughout the entirety of it's existence.
Discerning the bible is no different from discerning the inspiration of preachers, podcasters, commentators, or public figures today.
They all claim to speak for God just as prophets, priests, kings, and biblical narratives did in the days of the bible.
But we are non-literal readers of people. We hear what they say but test their words and actions to know if what they say and do is honest and integral to who they are, what their intentions are, and how they wish to form the tomorrows of our societies.
The question must then be asked, "Who speaks for God?"
"How are they speaking for God?"
"What is the outcome of their words in actions and policies because of the God they speak of?"
God's speech today is no less than God's speech eons ago.
We call it revelatory, but I call it normal.
God is communicating everyday in everyway possible because humanity comes in a polyplural package of varieties with a variety of needs, wants, personal and social environments, experiences, and histories.
The Art of the Commonplace aptly describes the Inspiration of God to mankind today.
It is no less, nor no more, in the bible even as it is today.
They are the same.
But even more so! Today's Godly inspiration is magnified because of our lived experiences of religious beliefs.
God's inspiration today may therefore be the more clearer with better theology today.
THEOLOGY
God is One.
God is Love.
God is speaking today as God did in yesteryear.
Where the bible people saw God as a God of wrath based upon their cultural upbring, religions, and beliefs, Jesus comes along and shows us a God of Love, Hope, regeneration, and beauty.
When Jesus speaks, He may speak to the people's beliefs. But when He speaks and acts, Jesus always shows us a God of love, love, love, love.
Process Theology rejects Western Christianity's classic theistic portrayals of a dipolar God.
Process Theology tells of a God of love alone without wrath.
A God who speaks into a world of agency where wrath and evil result from the misuse, abuse, and inaction of freewill.
The wrath and evil this world's experiences are not of God but of sin.
Process Theology therefore speaks of a panentheistic world where God is Savior, Redeemer, Reclaimer, Restorer, Lover, Hope, Beauty, and Joy.
A Process Christian rests in these truths:
That God is a God of Love.
God is not sin, evil, corruptible, contemptible, or horrible.
God is not wrath, hell, or judgment.
God is LOVE.
I worship therefore a God of LOVE.
R.E. Slater
October 10, 2021
