Is Your Concept of God a Crutch?

Jesse (The Body) Ventura, when he was Governor of Minnesota several years ago, came under fire for making a statement about religion being a crutch for weak-minded people. At the time I was a Christian, and I along with many other people of faith was appalled at such a statement. While I still don’t agree with his statement, I can see some nugget of rationality in it now.

What is your concept of God? I have stated in previous posts that I started to really have a hard time with prayer. I realized that I was using my concept of God as a crutch. When things weren’t going the way I wanted, or thought they should, I would offer prayers of “supplication” and “thanksgiving.” I knew I needed to be thankful first, and then I could ask for God to fix me and my life. That was fine for a while…a long while. However, I started to pray less and less, and began questioning my beliefs more and more, until I finally came to the realization that I could no longer continue down the Christian path, nor any religious path for that matter.

Call it pride, self-pity, whatever you like, but I came to the point that I couldn’t, in good conscience, ask God for anything. I realized that one of the problems I had with religion was that it seemed so self-serving. We can all have times of genuine love and admiration for the creator, and even praise it for its grandness. But let’s face it, it seems the vast majority of prayers going on out there are for personal requests. “Dear God, please let me get this job…you know that I have prepared well for the interview and have done my part…please give this job to me…according to your will.” I would always add that tag ending, just to make it seem unselfish.

I began to think, “what about that other job candidate that prepared just as much as I and is just as qualified as I, and has prayed the same prayer? Whom does God choose? As a Christian, I could always fall back on the “it wasn’t according to God’s plan for my life” excuse. It was always a great comfort to think that God had something better planned for me. But then I remembered, wait, I have free-will. How do God’s plans align with my free-will? Sure, I need to submit myself to God’s leading, but then how do I know what that leading is if I am praying according to my perceived needs? If, in my conscience, I feel a “prompting” to become a missionary in Abu Dhabi, does that mean that I need to pack up and go?

Here’s the deal, God became a great excuse for all sorts of things. If I was happy, I praised God for the happy experience. If I was sad or worried, I asked God to fix it. If I was unsure of what to do, I asked God for direction. If I was angry, I could blame God. Where is there any personal accountability in this? You may write comments to me remarking that my concept of God was skewed, but let’s be honest, how many people have that same skewed concept but don’t admit it?

I touched on some of the issues in my earlier posts regarding “American Christianity” parts one and two. I do believe that our concept of God is really going astray. We have taken the “personal relationship” portion of Christianity and turned it into a “personal genie” relationship. Instead of honestly looking at why we are in the situation we are in, whether good or bad, we tend to give God the credit for it, and then “pray” to it according to our desired outcomes. Is this what God is all about?

The standard line in Christianity is that God created us to honor Him. That is our purpose in life. Well, because we have a “personal” relationship with God, we can push the “honor Him” portion of our purpose aside, and focus on how we can bring honor to Him by Him using us to accomplish great things. Do you see what I’m getting at. We can be very clever beings. If I want God to use me for His glory, then I want His glory to be revealed in the things I want to pursue. If I mess up getting there, God will fix it. If it’s going great, then it’s because I am in tune with His leading. (read- when I screw up, God will bail me out, when I do well, it’s because of ME being a good follower.)

I really don’t want to criticize all religion. That’s not my point. My point is that I think we should re-examine our belief of who God is and who we are. If you come out with the same beliefs you’ve always had, more power to you (although I would question the depth of your analysis).

These are thoughts and feelings I’ve had for a long time. However, it wasn’t until recently that I was really able to identify them. As most of you know, I am no longer a Christian. I consider myself a Deist philosophically. In all honesty, the only “prayers” that I can utter are recognitions of beauty in nature. That’s it. I can’t pray about myself or my situations, whether good or bad. I believe that my fortunes and misfortunes are directly related to my action or inaction in life. I can’t see it any other way.