Uncontrolling Love (2): Power Exercised by the Beast in Contrast to Power Exercised by the Lamb

In a similar vein as the previous post, this chapter by Ronald L. Farmer from Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God deals with Jesus' words in Matthew 22:15-22 in which he responds to the Pharisees and Herodians who team up to attempt to trap Jesus with a question about paying the census tax which had to be paid with a Roman denarius. (The denarius in itself was considered an idolatrous object by many Jews.)

While theologians have historically and correctly used this passage for guidance in the delicate dance between the state and God, Farmer brings out a third teaching and says,

"Most Christians are aware of the danger of 'rendering to Caesar things that belong to God,' but the danger of 'rendering to God things that belong to Caesar' is often overlooked...

"...This error occurs whenever people conceive of God in terms of Caesar, in essence creating God in Caesar's image, only 'bigger'. This all-too-common theological error results in Christians picturing God as exercising coercive, controlling, unilateral power like Caesar, except raised to the Nth degree (mathematically speaking). 

"Herein lies contemporary Christianity's fundamental flaw, the nearly ubiquitous error that alters, or at least taints, every other theological and ethical teaching and practice--including one's assessment of and vision for the socio-political order...

"I write in my commentary on the book of Revelation: 

'A person's conception of divine power greatly influences his or her understanding of power on the human level...Thus if divine power is viewed as coercive, all-controlling, and unilateral, then the corresponding understanding of the highest/ideal form of human power will be coercive, all-controlling, and unilateral--like the power exercised by the beast, the Roman empire. But if divine power is understood to be persuasive, all-influencing, and relational, then the corresponding understanding of the highest/ideal form of human power will be persuasive, influencing, and relational--like the power exercised by the Lamb.'

Uncontrolling Love (1): A Theology that Starts with Love Takes Us to a Different Place than One that Starts with Power

Because love desires the full freedom of the loved one, it is not controlling. If God is Love, then God is not controlling.

The implications of this statement mess with the ideas/beliefs that many of us who call ourselves "Christian" have been taught about the nature of God. They force us to reconsider how we think about the One we call God and his way of relating with his creation and how we, who profess to follow his ways, live and act. 

I have been working with this for a number of years and am delighted to find more and more material available to help give me language and to expand my heart and mind as it relates to God and others. Because this has been such a help to me, I want to do a series of posts about the uncontrolling love of God. These will be sporadic and short posts with quotes taken from the book, Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God. Each chapter is by a different author, giving a wide range of input on this theme.

The following is from Ignacio Castuera in his sermon on Hosea 11:1-4 and Matthew 7:7-11:

"(...in the passage from Hosea) the image of God saying it was God who taught Ephraim to walk is one that is filled with tenderness. Jesus (in Mt. 7) is building on that. Our faith...echoes that strong division in the Bible between the faith of the religion of rules, regulations, and rituals of the temple, and the faith taught by the prophets about a loving God, a caring God, a God who wants us to love each other and to spread that love...it started with the teachings of Jesus...and that image of Jesus when he says, 'if you, filled with faults as you are, can give good gifts, how much more your heavenly papito, your heavenly Abba...' That image is one that impels the church to become the force that it was in the Roman empire.

"But Constantine saw that that force could be used for his purposes...the Caesars of Rome hired the theologians of the church to create the images of power that have been passed down to us. All of the attributes of Caesar were assigned to God and the vision of tenderness that Jesus and the prophets had given us almost disappeared...

"The religion of the God with the attributes of Caesar is challenged by the religion of love, of a caring loving God. It is not omnipotence that is important for us as followers of Jesus. Instead, it should be love...

"A theology that starts there is going to take us to very different places from a theology that starts with images of power."