Tony Jones

God Does Not Have a Mustache

Tony Jones — Fri, 28 May 2010 00:10:31 +0000

Unless, of course, it’s an ironic, hipster mustache.

N.B., This post is (NOT) part of a series exploring apophatic statements about God.

God Is Not Just

Tony Jones — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:09:52 +0000

Definitions of “just” and why God is not that:

1.) merely: and nothing more; “I was merely asking”; “it is simply a matter of time”; “just a scratch”; “he was only a child”; “hopes that last but a moment”

God is not merely anything. God is always the unexpected more.

2.) precisely: indicating exactness or preciseness; “he was doing precisely (or exactly) what she had told him to do”; “it was just as he said–the jewel was gone”; “it has just enough salt”

“Precise” implies the ability of something to be pinned down, scrutinized, and measured, which God most assuredly is not.

3.) only a moment ago; “he has just arrived”; “the sun just now came out”

If God is a moment ago, God is also the next moment; God is both the distant past and the eternal future.

4.) absolutely; “I just can’t take it anymore”; “he was just grand as Romeo”

God’s absoluteness demolishes all absolutes, including God’s own absoluteness.

5.) equitable: fair to all parties as dictated by reason and conscience; “equitable treatment of all citizens”; “an equitable distribution of gifts among the children”

Although we wish God to be, God is not equitable. The rain does, indeed, fall on the just and the unjust alike, but God’s creation is rife with creatures who are preternaturally endowed with more resources than other creatures. Humankind’s history is a string of stories about the struggle for limited resources, not to share them equitably, but to hoard them and lord them over others. And, like it or not, God allows this pattern to continue unabated. Even the biblical narrative is one of unmerited favor upon some and destruction of others.

6.) barely: only a very short time before; “they could barely hear the speaker”; “just missed being hit”

God may be barely God, but God is also exceedingly God.

7.) fair: free from favoritism or self-interest or bias or deception; conforming with established standards or rules; “a fair referee”; “fair deal”; “on a fair footing”; “a fair fight”; “by fair means or foul”

One word: Israel.

8.) exactly at this moment or the moment described; “we’ve just finished painting the walls, so don’t touch them”

God may be temporal, but God is not able to be pinned down to a moment.

9.) good: of moral excellence; “a genuinely good person”; “a just cause”; “an upright and respectable man”

Here, of course, is the real rub, for this is what Christians most often mean when we say, “God is just.” But good is by definition a relative descriptor, in the mix of “good, better, best.” One man’s good is another man’s “not-good-enough.” You give me a working definition of “good” (or, for that matter, “equitable”), and I’ll give you a half-dozen biblical examples of why God is not good, by your definition.

N.B., This post is part of a series exploring apophatic statements about God.

Back Out

God Is Not on the Side of the Poor

Tony Jones — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:17:11 +0000

It’s often said that God is on the side of the poor/oppressed/marginalized, and, indeed, there is much in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures that suggest that God has an eye out for those who who have less voice in society than others. But YHWH is more than happy to use rich kings as well as naked prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures, and Jesus embraces tax collectors and fishermen alongside the blind and lame in the Christian scriptures. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.

To the statement, “God is on the side of the poor,” one can ask, “How poor do I have to be for God to be on my side?” Because poverty — or marginalization or oppression — is always relative. I may be poor compared to my neighbor, but I’m rich compared to a person living in Appalachia, who is rich compared to someone in Burundi, who is rich compared to a serf who lived in 1243. Compared to a first century tax collector, I am not poor.

The other problem with claiming that God is one someone’s side, over against someone else, is that it gets to sounding a bit like members of a sports team who claim, upon winning, that the victory was somehow authored or blessed by God. Most of us scoff when one team claims that God is on their side. But how different is it to claim that, based on our own human measurements of poverty, that God favors one group of people over another?

Rather than claiming that God is on the side of the poor in an unqualified sense, better to note that we are all poor, relative to God. Or just to state that God is on the side of everyone.

N.B., This post is part of a series exploring apophatic statements about God.

God Is Not Male

Tony Jones — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:09:02 +0000

I’ll begin my explorations into the apophatic by stating something that God is Not, and something that I doubt will generate too much consternation among readers:

God Is Not Male.

Since God is also not female, it’d be even more accurate to say that God Is Not Gendered.

I think this sentiment is more palatable these days than it was fifty years ago because we are now aware of the complexities of gender. The meanings of words like “masculine” and “feminine,” “manly” and “womanly,” have been pretty thoroughly deconstructed. Thus, it’s really not even accurate to say, “God has characteristics of both genders,” since that sentence is basically meaningless. God is strong, which is masculine? God is sensitive, which is feminine? The ridiculousness of these sentiments quickly becomes clear.

Which makes this a good introductory salvo into the apophatic. We know only gender. Even the aforementioned complexities (homosexual, queer, bi-sexual, transgendered, intersexed) are understood based on the poles of the two genders. But God fits neither of the genders nor the complexities in between.

Therefore, we are left with nothing kataphatic to say, nothing positive to claim, when reflecting on God and gender. Instead, we make the apophatic statement, God Is Not Gendered.
N.B., This post is part of a series exploring apophatic statements about God.

A Little Post about God

Tony Jones — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:29:51 +0000

I’ve been thinking about God lately, and I cannot help but be continually pulled toward an apophatic relationship with God. That is, the more I’m drawn to thinking about God, the more I am convinced of the unknowability of God. And so I wonder if I took on the challenge of Maimonides and spoke about God only in the negative, only stating what God is not.

I’m ready to dive into this, but I’m also struck with the challenge as a parent. I don’t know that it’s fair to my young children to speak to them only of what God is not. Nor do I think a pastor could get away with this for very long. Apophatic sermons, while probably more theologically accurate than kataphatic sermons, can probably tend to get dreary.

I think that Pete Rollins has made the most productive step that an apophatic preacher can make, and that is to truck primarily in the genre of parable.

Me? I think I’m going to spend the next few posts writing about what God is not.
N.B., This post is part of a series exploring apophatic statements about God.