{"id":5020,"date":"2022-01-01T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T00:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=5020"},"modified":"2021-10-20T10:23:16","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T02:23:16","slug":"215-not-a-god-of-power-but-a-vulnerable-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=5020","title":{"rendered":"287. Not a God of Power, But a Vulnerable God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><sup>4\u00a0<\/sup>But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us\u00a0<sup>5\u00a0<\/sup>even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ &#8211; by grace you have been saved<\/span><\/strong>. [<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Ephesians 2:4-5, <\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>NRSV<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Beautiful-Jesus-with-Child.2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-5022\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Beautiful-Jesus-with-Child.2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"845\" height=\"634\" \/>\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<span style=\"color: #000000;\">Beautiful Jesus with Child<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Christianity has been around for two millennia. In his book titled \u201cNarratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scriptures\u201d, William C. Placher spotlights and laments a pervasive neglect of the God who is \u201cvulnerable\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In any part of the world, where Christianity has been a dominant religious influence, people assume that they know what the word \u201cGod\u201d means. Whether or not they believe in God, whether or not they even find the notion of God attractive at all, they do have some idea of who \u201cGod\u201d is and what the term \u201cGod\u201d refers to. They all tend to center their idea of God on power. God has the power to do this, that and the other, things which humans cannot do. To say \u201cGod\u201d is to refer to an all-powerful, omnipotent, Being \u2013 the One who is in charge of everything, in heaven and on earth, the entire universe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">As people take their idea of God for granted, they fixate on some equations:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">God is \u201cking\u201d, but a king without a consultative body like a parliament, and so an absolute monarch;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">God is \u201cfather\u201d, but old-fashioned and conservative, this father is a domineering patriarch;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">God is \u201cthe Lord\u201d, but demanding and non-negotiable, He places his subjects under obedient servitude.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Ideas such as these, in which God\u2019s power is taken for granted, continue to underline even the classical conundrums posed against \u201cGod\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">If God is all-powerful, why is there evil and suffering in the world?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">If God is all-powerful, how can human beings have any freedom?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">If God is all-powerful, why do good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">If God is all-powerful, why did He have to make His Son die on the cross like that?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The problem, really, is a colossal failure in reading the Christian Bible properly. It is so easy to buy into the idea of \u201cpower\u201d because power is attractive and comes with an easy solution for \u201csalvation\u201d from all kinds of woes, especially deep human sufferings and calamities and, finally, death and eternal doom. Yes, God is powerful, and the element of power runs through the entire Bible. But, the Christian gospel neither starts its understanding, nor pins its hope, on a God of secular power. It starts from a very different place, offering from the outset a narrative of God whom we encounter, first and foremost, as love. The question is: Why do humanity, and worse Christians, have apparent great difficulties in comprehending the God of love, preferring to equate God only with power?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">John\u2019s first epistle puts it in such a way that is as simple as it is troubling:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He who does not love does not know God; for God is love [I John 4:18].<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Most apparent perhaps in family life, the one who loves willingly risks being vulnerable and places oneself on a path dotted with suffering. God, who is love, is truly vulnerable in love and vulnerable to great suffering. We see this in God\u2019s self-revelation, Jesus Christ. In the biblical stories, Jesus comes across as one who has stunning power that can only come from heaven and yet, he suffers pain and humiliation in extreme powerlessness.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">From Calvary to Bethlehem, Jesus Christ was kept out, first with \u201cno room for them in the inn\u201d (Luke 2:7) and born in a manger. As an adult preaching the kingdom of God, he\u00a0 wanders with nowhere to lay his head (Luke 9:58). Like a servant, he washes the feet of his disciples (John 13:5). Arrested, locked up, spat at, slapped, crowned with thorns, interrogated, stripped, mocked, put through severe physical torture, pain and humiliation, paraded before a whipped up mob, pronounced a blasphemer, condemned to death by the religious authorities in connivance with the political power of the day, carried his cross to Calvary, and crucified outside the city-gate, like a common criminal together with other criminals (Mark 15; Matthew 27; Luke 23; John 19). The \u201cpowerful\u201d King of kings is as Isaiah had foretold, so tortured and disfigured, \u201cdespised and rejected by others, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces,\u00a0he was despised, and we esteemed him not\u201d (Isaiah 53:3).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">And yet, just this \u201cpowerless\u201d Jesus is proclaimed in the Gospels as the human face of God. He is not merely a messenger of God or a prophet, but God\u2019s own self-revelation to humankind. The Spirit of God has descended <em>into<\/em> him and stayed <em>in<\/em> him during his baptism at the River Jordan (Mark 1:10), and he so declared it at the beginning of his Galilean ministry in the synagogue: \u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon me\u201d (Luke 4:18).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The point in all this is, if God becomes <em>truly human <\/em>in just this way, then the Gospels are telling us something about how we might seek and live out our true humanity:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201c<em>not in quests of power and wealth and fame but in service, solidarity with the despised and rejected, and the willingness to be vulnerable in love<\/em>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Christians, drawn as we must all be to a theology that begins with Jesus Christ whom we encounter in the Gospels, are therefore expected to care most about the outcasts and the suffering people of the world. We are supposed to be the most suspicious of raw power with its inevitable entourage of status, prestige and privileges, both inside the Church where we presume God is present as in the outside world which we in the Church are so brazen as to label \u201csecular\u201d suggesting that it is <em>irreligious<\/em> and essentially <em>without<\/em> God. It is a manifestation of the fallen humanity whenever and wherever we see anyone with vested power abuses that power and control, through the simple expedience of rules and laws and administrative control, to elevate oneself and to put others down. In the Catholic Church, the harsh and damning reality is: <em>he who has the power to consecrate has all the powers<\/em>! There lies the immense sin-trap and Pope Francis never tires of exposing it,\u00a0to the chagrin of other power-ranked churchmen who do not fancy his humble style of governance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Writing from her feminist perspective, Elizabeth A. Johnson reminds us all that the liberating dynamic initiated by Jesus the Christ and bequeathed to the Church community he left behind \u2013 \u201cdo this in memory of me\u201d; \u201cI have given you an example, you too must do the same to one other\u201d; \u201clove one another as I have loved you\u201d &#8211; has been consistently twisted into justification for privileged status, superiority and domination. \u201cThus coopted, the powerful symbol of the liberating Christ lost its subversive, redemptive significance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Today, God has raised another prophet, Pope Francis, to try and put things right. Quite a few have emailed us, and more have spoken directly with us, voicing their concern over the persistent challenges, from some \u201cconservative\u201d quarters of the Church, against the words and actions of the current Roman Pontiff. Repeatedly, to reduce their confusion, we have suggested that they focus on the deeper reality in what Pope Francis is doing. Be consoled, and notice how closely, in contrast to his critics, Pope Francis tries to imitate the simple, down-to-earth, humble and vulnerable Jesus his Lord portrayed in the Gospels. For instance, by:-<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Focusing on the liberating Christ of the Gospels, and not the harsh image of him in the books of strict doctrines and punishing laws.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Setting people free to become the best human persons they possibly can as children of the God of love.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Loving, accompanying and walking the difficult journey with the people instead of issuing negative judgments on them all the time.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Reforming the domineering and corrupt structures in the Church and calling for repentance and change on the part of the ordained and consecrated leaders.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Insisting on a Church of the Poor and for the Poor.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Insisting on living a simple and humble existence, washing the feet of the \u201clittle\u201d and marginalized ones.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Calling on Christians, beginning with the ordained, to humble service, upon the knowledge that there is no humility without humiliation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Accepting a mission of compassion, mercy and forgiveness, a mission in vulnerable Christian love..<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 15px; color: #000000;\">Copyright \u00a9 Dr. Jeffrey &amp; Angie Goh, January 2022. All rights reserved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">You are most welcome to respond to this post. Email your comments to <strong><u><a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"mailto:jeffangiegoh@gmail.com\">jeffangiegoh@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/u><\/strong> You can also be dialogue partners in this <em>Ephphatha Coffee-Corner Ministry<\/em> by sending us questions for discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>4\u00a0But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us\u00a05\u00a0even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ &#8211; by grace you have been saved. [Ephesians 2:4-5, NRSV] \u00a0\u00a0Beautiful Jesus with Child Christianity has been around for two millennia. In his book titled <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=5020\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Dr. Jeffrey &amp; Angie Goh","author_link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?author=1"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?cat=1\" rel=\"category\">From Our Perspective<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"4\u00a0But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us\u00a05\u00a0even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ &#8211; by grace you have been saved. [Ephesians 2:4-5, NRSV] \u00a0\u00a0Beautiful Jesus with Child Christianity has been around for two millennia. In his book titled&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5020"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6750,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions\/6750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}