Tell Me About the God You Don’t Believe In

My pastor recently told us that when someone tells her they don’t believe in God, her standard response is, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.” Too many people have turned away from religion—and Christianity in particular—because they cannot believe in the God they have been taught:

a cruel God who tortures people in Hell for eternity for not doing or believing the right things; or

a racist God who hates people who are not of a particular race, ethnicity, or religion; or

a misogynistic God who wants women to be under their husband’s thumb and spend all their time having and raising lots of babies; or

a mean God who inflicts death, disease, or suffering on people who don’t do exactly what he wants.

But that’s not the God the New Testament talks about. I will address each of these in order.

As I have written before, the Hell of bad sermons, vindictive preachers, and the Koran finds little to no support in the Bible. It mostly comes from the imagery in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31), but that’s a parable, a story, meant to illustrate a point, not to be taken as literal fact. While I do not believe God will, or can, save everyone—as much as he might like to—I also do not accept the view of Hell as a place of eternal torment. It is simply inconsistent with the Father Jesus talked about—a God who loves us so much that he would suffer a cruel and humiliating death in order to reconcile us to himself.

God is no racist. While he once chose the descendants of Abraham through whom to bless “all the families of the earth,”[1] Paul’s letter to the Romans makes clear that God does not play favorites:

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him;  for “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”[2]

Paul made the same point regarding women: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”[3] Yes, there are definite biological differences between men and women—and as the French say, vive la difference—but as I have pointed out more than once, several women served in leadership roles in the early Christian church, and did so with the evident approval of Jesus and church leaders. So God is no misogynist.

The idea that God is a vengeful judge who punishes us in this life for the wrongful things we do is an all-too-common belief, akin to the idea of karma.[4] But Jesus did not seem to buy the idea. When his disciples asked him whose sin was responsible for a man being born blind, his own or his parents, Jesus rejected both, saying “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”[5] And in Luke 13:1-5, we read this:

Now on that very occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And Jesus responded and said to them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans just because they have suffered this fate? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you think that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse offenders than all the other people who live in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

The God of Christianity is a God who loves us—all of us—with a love that is unconditional and impartial. But it’s also a love that comes with expectations—that we will love him in return and trust him enough to accept that he knows what is best for us. And that means that we need to turn away from the things that come between us and God, and try to live as he wants us to live, by loving each other.  

Now you can accept God’s love and give yourself into his hands, like a child trusts a parent. Or you can reject him and his love. But please make that decision based on the truth about God, and not because of any misconceptions about him. 

[1]. Genesis 12:3

[2]. Romans 10:12-13

[3]. Galatians 3:28

[4]. For example, when the AIDS epidemic erupted in the 1980s, I heard a lot of Christians claim that it was God’s punishment on homosexuals.

[5]. John 9:1-3