May/June 2006
Editorial

God bless America
One nation under God

By Ravi Dykema

Fight evil-doers. And pray (to God) for peace.

These are words I have heard spoken by elected leaders in the U.S. many times recently. For better or worse, a conservative brand of Christianity sways our government and our laws, according to many political pundits.

But those who take their spiritual inspiration from the life and teachings of Jesus Christ are a diverse lot. A retired Christian Bishop told Nexus, "I look at American Christianity today and I'm almost in despair. The Christian vote in America is an anti-abortion, anti-homosexual vote. I consider that to be anti-female and anti-gay, and I don't want to be identified with a God who is anti-anything." (See our interview with retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong on page 30.)

On the national state the liberal Christian voice has, it seems to me, been nearly silent. Many Christians must have been cringing even more than I at some of the statements made by those who are considered leaders in the Christian religion, such a Jerry Falwell's statement on Pat Robertson's TV program on September 13, 2001: "What we saw on Tuesday (the terrorist attacks on September 11), as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve... The abortionist have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad... I really believe that the pagans nand the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America... I point the thing (the terrorist attack) in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" (Quoted from www.truthorfiction.com.)

Bishop Spong, too, is outspoken and controversial, as religious reformers usually are. He says, "The miraculous God, the supernatural God, the God who controlled the weather, the God who sent sickness, the God who fights wars and protects us; that God consciousness has been dying for about 600 years, and it's pretty much gone."

Not according to the authors of "What's Wrong With Bishop Spong?" They are responding to this quote from Spong's 1991 book, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: "We have come to the dawning realization that God might not be separate from us but rather deep within us." Michael Bott and Jonathan Sarfati write, "This redefinition of God is a form of panentheism: the view that God is in the world as a soul is in the body. But 'the God within' is no God at all. It is merely another name for one's own desires and lusts. This is probably the reason that such views are appealing to the unregenerate man: such a 'god' makes no ethical demands, and sends no one into final judgment. However, it is also impossible to derive Spong's ethics from such a view. If God is within all people, then he is in fundamentalists and all the other people Spong despises. Spong provides no criterion to decide which 'God within' is the right one." (From an article in Apologia, the journal of the Wellington, New Zealand, Christian Apologetics Society, and reprinted at www.answersingenesis.org.)

For yet another perspective on God and Jesus, see our story in this issue about the Urantia Book and those who are inspired by it (page25).

And please, if this debate intrigues you, send us your responses to any of this issue's articles by June 10. We'll print them in our letters column in our July/August issue. (We edit for clarity, and please refer to a specific article or quote.)