When we have broken our god of tradition and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with his presence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Over-Soul, [From The Portable Emerson]

Just when I think I get a handle on this God-thing, something always comes along and blows my entire worldview.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist home, so typically, my childhood was filled with the images of God as an old man with a long flowing white beard who concerned himself with every detail of your life. By praying, you could get God to give you what you desired. By apologizing to him, you could get him to forgive your sins. By loving him, he would love you back.

This God lived somewhere "out there" in heaven. His arch-nemesis, the devil, lived "down" in hell. They are both vying for the attention of people on earth, thus the never-ending struggle between good and evil.

I have clung to this view of God for ages. I still have the vestiges of these beliefs today. I no longer think of God as the bearded old man, but I still believe, on some level, that God is intimately involved in my life and only wishes good for me.

My illusions and definitions of God have been sorely tested as I read John Shelby Spong's new book "Why Christianity Must Change or Die." He makes a strong argument for dispensing with the theistic God I have worshipped since childhood. I'm finding his argument alluring, yet almost impossibly challenging. My God of tradition is so comfortable, personal and loving. Spong doesn't suggest that a new way to look at God means dispensing with this all together, but instead viewing God not as "out there" but "in here" ... within all of us.

In Buddhism, the notion of God is described as "the ground of all being" and this is the God Spong calls us into relationship with. The God who controls everything from the weather, to disease to whether you find a good parking space is dead. But, the God who calls us into full communion with the holy within ourselves and others is fully alive and waiting to be discovered by Christians of this modern age.

It's hard for me to give up the God that controls every aspect of my life and world. It's scary to think maybe we are alone in the universe, not watched over by a protective diety "in heaven." But how much more powerful do I feel knowing God has endowed, within me, the capacity to touch the divine? Now that my God of tradition and rhetoric is dead, my heart is open to receive the fire of God's ultimate presence in my life and the world.

Blessings,
Candace