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Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21)
During the blizzard that battered Billings over the last few weeks, I read Who Stole My Bible by Rev. Jennifer Butler*, former executive director of Faith in Public Life, who will keynote at General Synod this summer. Butler imagines people from scriptural stories living their faith. A young boy, who has only heard the creation myth of a violent wrathful god, hears for the first time a creation story in which the Creator says, “It was good.” A midwife who helped birth Moses leaves Egypt in the Exodus and talks with a man who is instrumental in designing the golden calf (Exodus 32). The Queen of Sheba meets King Solomon.
Butler writes that the ancient Israelites’ golden calf idolatry was not just building and worshipping an image of Baal, a militaristic god from the surrounding cultures, but that they turned away from the path God set for them. In our day, she notes, our idolatrous gods include the god of wrathful judgment, the god of the prosperity gospel, and the god of the “country club gospel” with whom we glad hand and strike deals. “Prosperity gospel teaches that if we do the right things,…God will make us healthy and wealthy.…God’s purpose with us does not involve wealth or an easy life, but following God does bring us closer to love and joy, which is far greater than
simple happiness” (p. 30-31).
We are made in God’s image; we also make God in our own image, idolizing human traits as godly and foisting that ideology onto others. “Authoritarians design a punishing god. Those who worship wealth design an ATM god…. Those who want to rule as tyrants make God over to be a tyrant” (p. 32).
Biblical kingdoms funneled the people’s resources upward in service to the monarch. From the ancient kings David and Solomon on through the Rome of Jesus’ day and the early church, stories of faithful folk shine through the stories of tyrannical rulers and dispassionate foreign emperors. Our faithful forebears were written into scripture because they subverted and thwarted oppressive power by living communally, healing the exiled sick and returning them into community, sharing food and resources, and claiming Jesus-- rather than Caesar—to be Lord and Savior. The book of Revelation uses fantastical images to break through Rome’s “totalitarian lockdown on all aspects of life” (p. 120), and it glimmers with truth and hope as God declares, “See I am making all things new…these words are trustworthy and
true.” (Rev. 21: 5).
I wonder if we as a conference might want to engage Rev. Butler’s book in a one time conversation prior to General Synod, perhaps in mid-late June. If you would like to join in this conversation please contact the office at ucc@mnwcucc.org.
Peace,
Pastor Tony
*Butler, Rev. Jennifer, Who Stole My Bible: Reclaiming Scripture as a Handbook for Resisting Tyranny (Faith in Public Life, 2020)
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