THE POST-MODERN "GOD"

     When liberal theologians said that "God is dead" they meant that because the Bible could not, according to their materialistic preconceptions, be seen any longer as authoritative and accurate, all definitive content about God was dead, and therefore all meaningful Judeo-Christian positions concerning God and morality as absolutes were extinct.25  Yet their "scholarly" conclusions were driven by the usually not too well buried assumptions of Enlightenment philosophy, which they themselves had swallowed on faith.   They did this often without realizing how they were indulging in the very circular reasoning they high-handedly accused the fundamentalist of employing for starting their search for truth from Scripture.  This type of thinking has infected most of the mainline Protestant denominations, and has a guiding voice in the Roman Catholic Church as well.
     For most of Christendom today, let alone society at large, the word "God" has functionally become a meaningless mnemonic buzz word that people can use as they see fit, filling in any definition they see fit.  The Gay Movement can say "God is Gay!" and it is seen as having equal intellectual validity with any objectively studied, Bible-based statement concerning the nature of God.  This is why radical feminists feel totally justified in neutering all divine gender references from the Bible.  Yet people who would never dream of saying "God is dead" will nonetheless defend this type of thinking in the name of human freedom -- because all objective meaning behind the word "God" is, for them, extinct.  They are left with nothing but an empty word, stripped of any definite meaning.
     Culturally, we have confused the LEGAL right to worship according to our own consciences with the amoral license to create our own little custom made gods free of the restraints of conscience.  I can almost hear the TV advertisement...

    Among such a people it does not matter what one believes, or ultimately what one does, because God has been demoted to a culturally convenient faerie tale, useful for the emotional comfort of bereaved people at funerals, but for very little more.  I do not question the LEGAL right people have to approach the idea of god this way -- merely their honesty and rationality in doing so.  Most people today insist that they believe in God, but behind the word "God" is only their own subjective feelings and ideologies of what they WANT to be true.  And they assume with no basis whatever that everybody else's concept of God must be equally without foundation.  THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE REVELATION ACCEPTABLE TO THEM FROM A GOD WHO IS REALLY THERE, AND WHO HAS HIS OWN IDEAS, INDEPENDENT OF WHAT ANYONE THINKS, AND WHO HAS SPOKEN IN A WAY THAT FINITE MEN CAN UNDERSTAND, EVEN IF THEIR UNDERSTANDING IS IMPERFECT.  WORSE YET, EVEN IF SUCH A REVELATION IS PRODUCED WHICH FITS ALL HONEST AND REASONABLE STANDARDS FOR SUCH A CLAIM (like the Bible does), IT IS REJECTED OUT OF HAND BECAUSE THE VERY CONCEPT OF SUCH A REVELATION HAS BEEN DEEMED COUNTERPRODUCTIVE TO MODERN RELIGION, WHICH RESTS ON A FOUNDATION OF NON-REASON.26  The result in our churches, and in society at large, is that the idea of a God outside of our own cultural consciousness has become FUNCTIONALLY unthinkable.  Thus "belief" has become equal in practice to what used to be considered unbelief.

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