Moderate and liberal Christians, unite! Reclaim Jesus, reclaim God, reclaim Christianity from the evangelical Christian Right! Just as Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Chapel in 1517 to speak up against the abusive practice of the sale of indulgences for the forgiveness of sin, so it is time for moderate and liberal Christians alike to speak out against a new set of abuses threatening to undermine the very fabric of Christianity. In other words, it is time for a new set of 95 Theses for the 21st Century: Reclaiming Jesus.

Imago Dei

July 12, 2010 - 8:55am — todonnell

The 5th century B. C. E., the Greek philosopher Xeonphanes of Colophon observed ever so sagely, “If oxen and horse and lions could paint, they would depict the gods in their own image.” So, too with humans. Arrogant as we are, we depict our God in our image, but we go one step further than that, we claim that we are depicted by God in God’s image. The human creature, imago dei, made in the image of God.

Today we begin our Imago Dei series of blogs by asking ourselves what that seemingly innocent Latin phrase, Imago Dei, means. What does it tell us, if anything, about our God? To answer this question, however, we have to go back to the beginning. Actually before the beginning. We have to begin with a blank slate, and ask ourselves some rather startling questions.

What if humankind is not capable of believing in God unless the ideas of Judgment and an afterlife, eternal salvation, heaven and hell are all part of the equation? What if humankind either needs a scorekeeper God to mete out rewards and punishments sometime in the unknown future, or, if there is no such scorekeeper, then there is no need for God? What if it is either orthodox theism or atheism? A “Big Guy in the Sky” God or no God at all? What if?

What if the Kingdom of Heaven is meant to be, not located in unknown someplace in the unknown time called the “then and later,” but rather it is meant to be the Kingdom of God in the here and now? Right here, and right now. On earth. Where justice and righteousness reign supreme, and where the lion lies down with the lamb. What if the Second Coming of Christ is the presence of the Holy Spirit in each and every one of us? Right here. Right now. What if?

Instead of evolving as it did, what if the Christian religion had developed as a road map, not to a heaven hereafter, but to the Kingdom of God right now? As a way of life here on earth? What if there never had been any suggestion of a quid for quo for doing good deeds, for doing right things – what if an eternal reward in the hereafter had never been dangled in front of Christians like the proverbial carrot enticing the proverbial rabbit to try harder? Would there be any room for God, or would God become irrelevant? Is God simply a necessary tool for protecting ourselves from our insecurity about an unknown future? By the way, there are plenty of psychologists who have made a name for themselves by suggesting just this. Sigmund Freud, amongst them.

All this leads us to the most challenging question of all. What if we had no history of God at all? What if we were to start out today with a blank slate? To paint our own God from scratch a la Xenophanes of Colohon. What would we paint? What kind of God would we create?

Stay tuned.

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