Hating God

The Democratic convention ended last week and it appears that the Dems have a problem with God.

“Mr. God, excuse me. We’d like you to leave––now. Please pick up your things and these nice gentlemen will be escorting you out.”

So, the idea of eighty-sixing God is bad enough but if that’s a long-term strategy, that seems rather, well, short-sighted.

I’m not about to psychoanalyze groupthink because I’m not a social scientist but I can certainly empathize with some of the individuals who wanted to kick God out of the arena. At one time, I belonged to their tribe.

Not so very long ago, I was driving home from work and as if a switch was flipped, I pulled over to the side of the road, distraught, and rested my head on the steering wheel––I was a wreck and I knew it. Supposedly, I was on top of the world with an overflowing life, but as I eventually discovered, the fullness of my life was attributable to the wrong priorities. I was chasing the same things as everybody else: materialism, pleasure, self-indulgence, egoism, and on and on. How unoriginal. And so empty.

At that time of my life, God was a nonentity. If I tried to drill down to the root causes of my unhappiness, it was difficult in that my worldview was limited. My take on the universe was material, consisting only of the physical and devoid of the spiritual. Trying to make sense of my existence was like building a fence with spaghetti. What did I really know about the true God?

If I did happen to honor Him with a few thoughts here and there, I was either blaming Him, condemning Him, cursing Him or hating Him; the histrionics of a spoiled child who doesn’t understand the role of a loving parent. Looking back, my magnificent idiocy should have bagged a slew of trophies.

I find this idea of hating God intriguing. How many people would admit to it? Would they be able to rationally explain their loathing? Is detesting Him at least better than not believing at all? How would they define God? Do people project their darker emotions on God without realizing it? Is the existence of evil the main reason He’s hated? Does God the concept uncomfortably get in the way of a nihilistic philosophy, that life is meaningless?

Do people really hate God or is He a surrogate? Do the promises of God seem so outrageous that He is hated for soliciting false hope? Could a thoughtful, logical and well-balanced Christian scholar despise God or, in other words, is hatred of Him the domain of the irrational, troubled or ignorant?

In those infrequent moments of my past when God was lucky enough to get an ounce of my time, when things were not going well, and when I couldn’t readily find anyone else to blame, I would hate Him in a loose, inarticulate sort of way. The insanity of directing this horrible emotion toward the heavens, however, was that I was clueless about God, ignorant of His life as Jesus, unschooled in His teachings, unwise about His creation, foolish about the nature of man and about as reflective as a sociopath.

Nevertheless, one should not allow free expression to be constrained by common sense. Idiots do what idiots do.

As I watched the Democrats struggle with the issue of God, I imagined a brave soul forging through the crowd toward the microphone. Granted a moment to address his comrades and after a few deep breaths for courage, he begins.

“Before our vote on this issue, I’d like us to consider this. If God is a possibility, is it wise to ignore the greatest of his Commandments? Matthew 22:37, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’”