Unlearning God by Philip Gulley

Author:Philip Gulley [Gulley, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2018-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

Why It Matters

What does the marriage of faith and nationalism say about God, and how does it affect our world? How does our failure to delineate between divine and national priorities shape our worldview and faith? Doesn’t it have a tendency to “shrink” God, reducing God to a regional player, with little concern for the wider world? How can we speak of a God who created the universe while simultaneously believing God is uniquely devoted to a microscopic slice of that universe? It would be no different than extolling the love of a mother for her children even as that mother sought to bless only one of them.

Until nations transcend their regional gods, there will never be peace. Until religions refuse to be exploited by those seeking divine endorsement for their political gain, the priorities of God will never be achieved. Nation will be pitted against nation, faith against faith, even family against family, for the divisions that poison one nation against another seep outward, infecting us all. The antidote is our steadfast refusal to limit God’s love to our own kind, and to embrace instead the universal aspect of God that permeates all creation.

Consider this: The true saints of the church aren’t those with an impassioned zeal for God and country but those whose vision of the Divine inspires them to see all people as fellow citizens of God’s wide Reign. It is as concerned for the Syrian child washed up on Turkey’s shore as it is for its own. Having no enemies except hate itself, it sees the Light of God in all, even if that Light is only a flickering spark.

I had the pleasure of knowing just such a saint, a woman named Fern Reed Hadley. I met her as I was entering this world of wider faith and she was departing it. An elderly Quaker, she labored diligently and cheerfully as one of God’s emissaries. It was a joy to know her, and to be known by her. Well into her eighties, she died suddenly while traveling through Portugal. Her body was donated to a medical school in that nation, and a memorial service was held several weeks later at the Quaker meeting we both attended. During the service, a family member traveling with her and present at her death had this to say: “We had no sooner arrived at our hotel room when Fern set about making it feel like home. She did that wherever we went, so that within an hour you felt as if you had lived there all your life. You felt as if you had come home.”

It is this “at-homeness” the true saints create wherever they reside. They feel at home in all the world, just as God is at home in all the world, and not just some privileged corner. Because all the world is home to them, all people are their neighbors. They have no fear of the stranger, no suspicion of the different. They welcome all, care for all, seek the best for all.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.