Not Our Fathers’ God

I’m reading through the Old Testament (again), and I am struck by the violence that spills over most of the pages. In a recent post I mentioned that I was becoming depressed because it seemed that the God I was reading about was so completely foreign to our twenty-first century sensibilities that there is no way to draw people to Him. Having taken up my reading schedule again, I remain unsure what to do with the character of the God of Israel.

Perhaps I have fallen prey to the same misapprehension that colors the thoughts of many moderns: we want God to fit our concepts of who He should be. In other words, we are remaking God in our own image. We are fine with a God who brings peace to our turmoil, health to our sickness and supply to our needs. We are not so happy with a God who orders mass genocide and demands bloody ceremonies for His appeasement. How do we give an honest picture of who God is to today’s pagan?

JB Phillips suggested our God is too small. I think perhaps our God is too wimpy. I like the way the Newsboys said it a few years ago: “I’m not following a God I can lead about / I can’t tame this deity / That’s why Jesus is the final answer / To who I want my God to be.” If Jesus is the final answer, the question becomes who is this Jesus. Is He the mild, handsome man of the Sallman portrait from 1940 that populates many Boomer memories? Is He more like the Jesus People pictured Him in the 1970’s, sort of a cool hippie look.

My favorite isn’t a portrait at all; it is the Christ figure, Aslan, from C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. After all, one of Jesus’ biblical titles is Lion of Judah. There is majesty and grace in the king of the jungle imagery. But there is also something more. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lewis has Lucy ask if Aslan is safe. Mr. Beaver responds, “Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good… it's not as if he were a tame lion.” I can’t tame this deity.

Lewis goes even further in The Silver Chair when Aslan assigns Jill a quest: she must find the lost prince or “die in the attempt.” That is brutal. But that is the nature of things in Lewis’ imaginary world. The battle between good and evil is front and center. Lewis got it; we have missed it. Our Savior is also a Soldier. Recall that the Revelation image of the returning Christ has Him mounted on a white charger brandishing a sword. We may be doing the opposite of the first century Jews who looked for a soldier and missed the suffering servant. We worship the meek and mild but forget the mighty warrior.

But I fear a lion may be too mythical, too last century for a modern audience. I have a suggestion: picture Optimus Prime from the Transformers. He’s strong; he’s huge; he’s terrible; but he is good. I know the Transformers movies are a little cheesy, but the ideas resonate: super-powerful beings from another dimension come to save humanity. It’s not on the literary level of C.S. Lewis, but it might help some modern pagans to see our God for who He really is. Do I have any takers for a portrait of Optimus Prime in the church hallway?