“WHOSE GOD?”
A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear
Sunday,
All
I’ve never made an exact count, but I estimate that over my career as a minister I have delivered between six and seven hundred sermons. In that time, there is one sentence from one sermon that I’ve heard quoted back to me more than any other. That is not as impressive as it may sound. I may have heard it quoted three or four times. But still, that is more than any other single sentence. I guess that says more about the un-quotablility of all the other tens of thousands of sentences I’ve spoken than it does about the quotablility of this one.
Anyway, the sentence is this: “An atheist is a person who disbelieves in only one more God than all the Gods anyone else disbelieves in.”
For that sentence to be worthy of being quoted, I need to fill in some background.
There are multitudes
of different Gods to believe in. The God
of the Indian Sikh religion is different from the God of the Caribbean
Rastifarian. The Sikh and the
Rastifarian are both atheists with regard to each others’ God. Everyone disbelieves in more Gods than they
believe in. A Baptist is an atheist with
regard to the Mormon God and the Catholic God.
The Amish disbelieve in the God of Anglicanism and the God of the Greek
Orthodox Church. A Hindu, though they
may believe in a hundreds of gods, disbelieve in the monotheistic God of
Israel. A Christian Scientist is an
atheist concerning the God of the Japanese Shinto religion. Most of us, thank goodness, disbelieved in
the God of Jim Jones and the People’s
All these Gods are there for us to choose. Each one is a concept of God available for our acceptance. Hundreds of them. All of us reject the vast majority, and most of us focus in on only one. We disbelieve in far more Gods than we believe in. We are all atheists. We all disbelieve in hundreds of Gods that are possible for us to believe in, but we choose not to believe.
Therefore the sentence: “An atheist is a person who disbelieves in only one more God than all the Gods anyone else disbelieves in.”
Some people – like I say, maybe three or four, certainly not a multitude – found that observation somewhat original, or at least worth remembering.
The point of the sentence is not to come to the defense of the atheist, though I would do so if the atheist were in need of defense. The point of that sentence is to underscore the fact that everyone rejects most other people’s concept of God, which is to say that everyone, at some level, is an atheist. The point of that sentence is that belief in God is a very personal thing, not something that we can prescribe for everyone else. The point of that sentence is also that opinions about God are just that: opinions. They are not self-evident truths.
That sentence means that if someone calls you a “disbeliever” because you happen not to believe in the God they believe in, you are free to point out that they, too, are atheists with regard to hundreds of other ideas of God that they adamantly reject. We are all atheists with regard to most of the Gods humanity worships.
For those of us who do affirm a belief in God, the point of that sentence to remind us that such belief is our choice, that we decide how to believe. We have every opportunity of choosing a different conception of God, or to disbelieve in one more God than all those we already disbelieve.
Whenever I am asked if I ‘believe in God,” the first thing that comes to my mind is a question: “Which ‘God’ are you talking about? Whose ‘God’ do you mean?” The questioner, I am well aware, is probably wanting to know if I believe in the same God they do, and is less interested in knowing which other God I may believe in.
This train of
thought returned to me when I read last month the front page story in the Indianapolis Star about a religion
survey conducted and published by
“
The sub-headline declares:
“Americans differ vastly on the nature of deity, landmark survey
finds.”
It turns out that the Baylor survey discovered that Americans who do believe in God, which is most of us, don’t necessarily believe in the same one. It was almost as if someone from Baylor, a highly respected academic institution with strong ties to the Southern Baptist Church, happened to run across a copy of my old sermon.
That survey produced a veritable goldmine of interesting information, and scholars will be mining it for quite some time. Most reports about the survey focused on two overall conclusions worth noting. I will mention both, but I am primarily interested in the second one.
The first
surprising conclusion from that survey is only somewhat relevant to the point
of my comments this morning. The results
of the survey challenge the conventional wisdom of other similar surveys which
say
The difference is that other surveys only asked about affiliation with a particular denomination. Baylor also asked them to name a particular congregation or “religious family” with whom they identify. Many who are not affiliated with a particular denomination, it turns out, are involved with specific congregations, which they can name. It turns out that there are so many non-denominational groups, that asking for denomination affiliation is misleading.
Anyway, it
seems that religion is still strong in
Which brings me to the second, and for my purposes more important, overall conclusion of the survey. Most similar surveys simply ask people whether they believe in God, and leave it there, moving on to other questions. This survey explored what kind of God they believed in, the qualities of the God they affirmed. The survey offered different possible descriptions of God, and asked them to mark off the ones that most closely described their belief in God. For example, would they agree that, “God is angered by my sins,” or that God is “removed from worldly affairs,” and so forth? They included one-word adjectives to describe God: “absolute,” “friendly,” “distant,” “forgiving,” or “wrathful,” for example.
By approaching it this way, they discovered how very differently people view God. And such diverse views are sometimes inconsistent, if not contradictory. The simple statement “I believe in God” is a bit empty of meaning without knowing what kind of God one affirms.
The researchers took the answers and grouped them according to four different categories of how God is viewed. The four categories were based on two variables: first whether people thought that God was made angry by human behavior, or God was more forgiving and understanding. The second variable was whether God was engaged and involved in peoples lives and world events, or whether God was outside of, and uninvolved in, events in this world. If you mix those two variables, you come up with four categories: “Authoritarian,” “Benevolent,” Critical,” and “Distant.”
In looking at these categories, I think it is clear that we are looking at different Gods – or at least different ways of conceiving God. Before elaborating on these four categories, I’d like to make a couple of observations. First, I think the researchers might agree that use of these four categories is somewhat arbitrary. Other variables might lead to differently labeled categories. Second, these could be broken into further labels, and the different views of God could be categorized in a dozen or even hundreds of different kinds of views. But with some minor quibbling on my part, I think this is a good start.
(By the way: over the
next few minutes, in explaining the survey results on these views of God, I
will be giving quite a few percentages.
Since this is a verbal rather than written report I give, I will try to
aid understanding by rounding the percentages up or down, unless the result is
right in the middle, like 38.5%). I
think rounding helps in verbal communication.)
The first view of God is called AUTHORITARIAN, and it represents 31% of the respondents. An Authoritarian God is both engaged in human affairs and is angered by it, dealing out severe punishment when necessary. Those who believe in an Authoritarian God tend to be conservative, both religiously and politically.
Researcher Christopher Badar summarized the Authoritarian view this way: “They want an active, Christian-values-based government with federal funding for faith-based social services and prayer in the schools.”
The second category of God they call BENEVOLENT, and it represents 23% of the respondents. The Benevolent God is very engaged in human affairs, but far more loving and forgiving than wrathful and angry. It is still a biblical view, but it draws on the compassionate side of the tradition. God is like a parent who sets rules but loves a child in spite of misbehavior.
The third and smallest category is a CRITICAL God, which represents about 16% of responses. The Critical God is angered by human sins, but doesn’t intervene much in either personal or world events. This is the classic picture of God as the bearded man on high. Not only is this the smallest group, it is the most difficult to categorize by political belief. They are not absolutist on issues, and probably the least predictable.
The fourth and
final category is the DISTANT God,
and is held by 24% of the respondents.
This God is a kind of cosmic force that launched the world, and then
left it alone – perhaps with an interest in world events, but no personal
involvement in them. This is a variation
on the God of Deism, the view of Washington and Jefferson and Franklin and
other Enlightenment thinkers who founded the
I might add that if I were one of the research staff, I would object to labeling this category “Distant.” It seems to carry an implication that the person’s belief in God is in some way weaker, rather than just different, from other believers.
In addition to these four views, researchers acknowledged a fifth category of ATHEISTS, which make up 5% of the respondents. They note that atheists hold strong views concerning morality and ideals of social order, but they have no room for the supernatural in their world views. Like the Baylor researchers, my comments this morning are more interested in the meaning drawn from the four different views of God.
The researchers juggled these findings to draw interesting observations. For example, it turns out that views of God seem to be correlated with demographic patterns. Individuals with higher education or higher income tend to see God as less engaged, either Distant or Critical. Those with lower education or income tend to see God as more involved in human affairs, either Authoritarian or Benevolent. Curiously, geography plays a role, too. The Critical God is stronger on the East Coast than elsewhere. Southerners tend toward an Authoritarian God. While Midwesterners are most likely to believe in an Authoritarian God, they are more likely than any other region, to believe in a Benevolent one. West Coat people prefer a Distant God.
And of course, denominational affiliation correlates with these categories. Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Jews, and unaffiliated are all more likely to believe in a Distant God. Evangelicals and Black Protestants are most likely to believe in Authoritarian God.
It is also understandable that views of God shape ones religious outlook. As a simple example, when asked “Do you believe God is a “He?” the four groups answered this way:
Authoritarian: 56% (God is a “He”)
Benevolent: 30%
Critical: 10%
Distant: 4.5%
It is in questions like these that one can see how people can mean so many different things when referring to the concept of God. Those who believe in an Authoritarian God are almost five times more likely than those who believe in a Distant God to think that God’s nature can be expressed by gender.
Or take this interesting question. “Which of the following values are very important in making someone a good person.” All groups agreed on many of the qualities, such as taking care of the sick and needy. But how important is it to convert others to your faith in making someone a “good person.” The range of differing answers is instructive.
Authoritarian: 21% (doesn’t seem high, but look what follows)
Benevolent: 12%
Critical: 4%
Distant: 0.3%
The survey concludes “Believers in a Distant God are 72 times less likely to believe converting others is a very important part of being a good person than those who believe in an Authoritarian God.
What I have been doing and am about to continue doing for a few minutes is not to everyone’s taste, I know. Giving statistics like these verbally can be disorienting to the listeners. But please bear with me.
I am going to talk about some controversial issues and give statistics. It will come in fairly rapid order, and please don’t feel you have to remember any numbers. There will be no test. But if you keep a fairly clear understanding of the four categories, the numbers paint a picture of very different Gods. It turns out that a person’s view of God is an astoundlingly accurate predictor of that person’s views on political and social issues. Here goes:
Take for example the question, “Is abortion always wrong?” When asked of the American public, 12% strongly agree that abortion is always wrong. But look at the range according to people’s view of God:
“Abortion is wrong in all circumstances?”
Authoritarian God: 23%
Benevolent God 17%
Critical God 5%
Distant God 1.5%
Now, how about if gay marriage is wrong?
Authoritarian God: 81%
Benevolent God: 66%
Critical God: 55%
Distant God: 31 %
Should the government fund faith-based organizations?
Authoritarian God: 47%
Benevolent God: 25%
Critical God: 32%
Distant God: 13%
Should the government expand authority to fight terror?
Authoritarian God: 76%
Benevolent God: 63%
Critical God: 64%
Distant God: 40%
Beliefs about God is a related to views about the war in
Authoritarian: 63%
Benevolent: 47%
Critical: 37.5%
Distant: 29%
When asked whether they believed Saddam Hussein was in some
way involved in the September 11 attacks against the
Authoritarian: 76%
Benevolent: 59%
Critical: 57.5%
Distant: 23.5%
Does God favor the
Authoritarian: 32%
Benevolent: 22%
Critical: 12%
Distant: 7%
Does God favor a particular political party in the
Authoritarian: 7%
Benevolent: 5%
Critical: 2%
Distant: 0.9%
I apologize to all of you for throwing numbers at you, but the numbers point to some important insights about belief in God. Paul Froese, one of the researchers in this study, points out that these answers were provided by people who considered themselves religious, and the results show that a common stereotype, that conservatives are religious and liberals are not, is “simply not true. Political liberals and conservatives are both religious. They just have different religious views.”
Most important, though, is that the numbers establish incontrovertibly that what people believe about God, not whether they believe, is a fundamental factor in what values and views they have about political and social issues. We believe in different Gods to the same degree that we believe in different values, and that goes hand-in-hand. Again, Professor Foese summarized it this way:
“If I know your image of God, I can tell all kind of things about you. It is a central part of your world view, and it’s linked to how you think about the world in general.”
It may be an overstatement to look at all this data and say, “We create our Gods in our own image,” but it appears like something along those lines is true. The researchers conclude that what you believe about God is a fairly useful predictor of what you believe about world values. It seems to me an equal case could be made for the reverse: that our values, our world views, lead us to specific views about what God must be like. If we are authoritarian in our approach toward life, we honor an Authoritarian God. If we are compassionate, our God is Benevolent, and so forth. The God we believe in may reflect who we are as people more than who we are is a reflection of the God we believe in.
It matters what we believe. That is why it is important to be careful in our beliefs. Again, it may be a little over simplistic, but to a great degree, what we believe is what we are.
In the reading earlier from Sophia Fahs, the great Unitarian minister and religious educator, she says, “It matters what we believe:”
“Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness and the feeling of being especially privileged. Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.
“Some beliefs are divisive, separating the saved from the unsaved, friends from enemies. Other beliefs are bonds in a world community, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.
“Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one’s own direction. Other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration.”
It matters what we believe. And it turns out that among those who believe in God, the nature of that belief reflects that person’s values. And it turns out, based on this survey, that what we believe about God is a fairly good indicator of what we belief about life itself. My vote is for a God that is compassionate rather than full of wrath, that is forgiving rather than vengeful, that not only loves, but respects creation.