What Kind of God?

A friend posted this article on Facebook about how Americans view God.  According to the article, there are 4 views of what kind of God He is: Authoritative (punishing), Benevolent (kind and caring), Critical (rewards/punishments are reserved for the next life), and Distant (uninvolved in our world).

At first, I read through it and thought perhaps I knew which view I hold (hint: not Authoritative).  But as I considered it further, I realized that my beliefs don’t neatly fit into any of those.  (This is not surprising; I tend to resist any type of strict categorization.)

The majority of conservative, evangelical Christians that I personally know seem to hold all of those beliefs simultaneously.  The problem is that they may be holding onto the wrong end of each category.  The view of God goes something like this:

1. We are horrible people in need of repentance.

2. If we don’t repent, God will punish us, in the form of end-times destruction or eternal conscious torment in Hell.

3. God really, really loves us.  If we believe the right things, He might save us from plane crashes, natural disasters, and poverty–if it’s in His will.

4. God has His eye on us, making sure that we aren’t being lazy.

4.God is distant–we’re separated from him by a huge chasm.  Unless, of course, we say the magic words and believe exactly the right things about Him, in which case He will come and live in our hearts.

Those all seem like placing limits on God in some way.  It makes it somehow sound like we are no more to God than playthings or pawns to be moved about in a cosmic game.  He is pointing His eternal finger at us, making magic by which His chosen toys survive the tsunami and the ones He’s ready to scrap perish.  He promises to punish us far more severely than we would ever do to our own children.

But what if we stop limiting God?  What if His goodness and His love are far bigger than that?  What if we stopped focusing on ourselves?  This might even have to include no longer fixating on our own sinfulness.  What would the world look like if we loved others the way God loves us?