Patience With God

Another excellent book I've finished recently is Frank Schaeffer's Patience With God. As a former fundamentalist, Schaeffer brings a unique perspective to questions about religion, the Bible, and the church and has some important insights to offer. I'll be sharing a few that I found particularly helpful in coming posts.

Here's an opening excerpt:

"[F]or people who think that Christianity was strict, literalistic and fundamentalist...the writings of some of the most important early Christian figures are a startling wake-up call. For instance, one fourth-century ascetic--Evagrius Ponticus--was a revered spiritual leader. He led by example rather than by official standing because he was not a bishop...[In his writings,] he made this anti-fundamentalist statement: 'Do not define the Deity: for it is only of things which are made or are composite that there can be definitions'" (xvii).

This point is an especially important one when we consider the tendency in many churches to define or fully grasp God or the divine through air-tight systems of dogma, fundamentalism, or rules and regulations. While there's a place for some norms to guide us, if we lose sight of the larger truth that the sacred is necessarily something that transcends us and can never fully be understood, we risk domesticating God and turning our worship toward gods of our own making - usually fashioned in our own image and a reflection of our own fears and narrow-mindedness. We all do this, of course, but the good news is that we can always come back to the authentic presence of God in our lives when we learn to let go a little of our need to fully control.

Peace,
Padre Chuck