“God Friended Me” Theology

I admit I got hooked on the CBS Sunday night series God Friended Me.   Even though I find myself rolling my eyes far too often at some of the cheesy coincidences or the many ways Miles and Cara awkwardly inject themselves into the middle of people’s lives, I still find myself moved by the story line and blaming my watery eyes on allergies.

The show is about Miles Finer (played by Brandon Michael Hall), an atheist who is also the son of an Episcopal priest (played by Joe Morton) who gets a friend request from someone named God.    Each show centers around a friend suggestion made by God which Miles and his band of friends (Cara and Rakesh) strive to help.   The side story happening alongside the drama of helping their new-found friends is their quest to discover who is behind the God account, because, well, the atheist Miles knows it most certainly can’t be God.

While the story line is intriguing, the theology behind it is not surprisingly dreadful.   Miles’ dad, the priest, offers very little in the way of correcting whatever misguided views his atheist son or lesbian daughter have.   More importantly, he presents his role as priest, and that of his church, as nothing more than a place where people discover their purpose in life.  The implication is that faith is simply discovering what your heart wants and going after it.

What’s implied by the father is explicit with his son.  In this week’s episode, Miles and Cara are discussing life and both affirm the necessity for everyone to follow your heart’s desire.   In fact, Miles states, your heart will never lead you astray.

In this way, God Friended Me does a marvelous job at positioning the Self at the center of the universe.   It affirms what all of us are all too easily persuaded to believe:  If I desire it, it must be good.   In this show, God friends me and affirms all that I am and the Church is there to support and nurture that belief.

Scripture, of course, has something very different to say about the nature of our hearts and the innate goodness of our desires.   The prophet Jeremiah warns us that our heart’s are deceitful and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9).   Who can know it? he asks.   It can be known, but to do such requires wisdom, and wisdom requires a fear of God (Prov. 9:10).   Without a holy fear of God, without surrendering our hearts, our wills, our lives over to God,  we cannot rightly trust any desire we have.

I know in myself that I have desires which are not of God.   And I am not speaking of just the obvious ones, or the addictive ones.   I am not speaking merely of those desires which if acted upon might cause harm to myself or others.  I am speaking also of those secret and not so secret desires which can parade themselves as virtue in our culture today.    Desires like ambition, greed, fame, pride.   A desire to be liked by others.   A desire to be known for my good deeds or pitied for my bad.   These desires, and many like them, are not from a pure heart but from one that is rooted in the things of this world.   To advise me to trust my heart and follow after it would be foolish indeed.

CBS is not the only platform telling us to trust our heart’s desires.   This message comes at us from all angles, including the Church.   I’ve written here in the past about the impasse the United Methodist Church is experiencing over homosexuality.    At the root of this struggle is a God Friended Me theology, one that suggests that if a person loves something and is not harming anyone, it must be good.   It’s an easy, and appealing theology to embrace.    It certainly tickles the ears.

One of my daily practices is to read a portion of Psalm 119.   There is one theme in this longest chapter of the Bible which is abundantly clear:   The writer desires nothing more than to be molded according to the word of God.    If the desire does not spring from God’s law, the psalmist wants nothing to do with it.     I have written in the past about how praying this to be true of me has changed my life.    It’s a prayer I continue to pray today, and have begun praying for our Church.

James couldn’t be more clear when he wrote that temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away (James 1:14).    Having a healthy skepticism of our heart and it’s desires is wise, and praying continually that our heart and it’s desires be conformed to the word of God is prudent.   Doing so gives us assurance that indeed, God has befriended us, and we are his friends if we obey his commands (John 15:14).

 

 

 

A Response to #UMC Bishop Karen Oliveto urging #LGBT to stay

Early on in my theological education I was in an awkward place.   I knew I was called to pastor, but because I had been running from God for so many years, I didn’t have a church home and therefore did not know where I might one day land.    So I began investigating different denominations, what they believed, how they did church, who could and could not be ordained within them, what the qualifications were for their pastors, etc.    I quickly discovered that there were several denominations that were not options for me due to my divorce.  After crossing those off my list I began pursuing those churches where those sins of which I repented (like my divorce) would not preclude me from being a pastor.

Hello, United Methodist Church.

I have much respect for those churches who have a stated covenant – a standard by which they as a church, particularly its leaders, will order their lives.   There is an integrity about them which I find compelling, even if and when I don’t agree with their standard.    I have an equal if not greater amount of respect for people I have met along the way who feel they have been called by God into pastoral ministry, but for one reason or another, they cannot do so in the church they have long called home.   Throughout seminary I met many women who found a home in the United Methodist Church because they could not be ordained in the church of their youth.    They could have stayed, I suppose, and tried to change their church.   Many of them even tried, so they said.   But after being rebuffed a number of times they remembered Jesus’ command,

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet (Matt. 10:14).

They determined to practice biblical obedience by moving on rather than casting their pearls before swine, so to speak.

I have much respect for them.   Rather than lobby year after year after year, for 40 years or more, stirring up dissension among their peers and rivalry among the ranks, they chose instead to find a new home.    They brought their charge before others, and when those others would not repent and change their ways, they found a place more amicable to their convictions.

It never occurred to me to chastise these women for leaving women behind in the churches they left.   Nor do I recall the women who did leave worrying about the spiritual well-being, or physical safety, of the women they left behind.    I did hear, however, much respect all around for those who stayed and those who left.   I heard things like, “Many of them seem to flourish in that environment, and they are following their convictions, as I am.  I wish them well,” and other such sentiments.

Churches that do not ordain women on biblical grounds are still thriving, with many women within their ranks who are flourishing.  Beth Moore doesn’t seem to be hurting too terribly from complementarianism, and this is true for thousands if not millions more.   No one is forcing them to stay in a church which abides by certain rules.  They are free to leave and find a new home just like the many women I met in seminary and have been blessed to serve alongside.   While I may not agree with their interpretation of scripture and how women may or may not serve the church, I can respect it.

That respect for their institutional rules, coupled with how I think it best to love my neighbor, conditions how I would counsel a young woman in, let’s say a Baptist church, on what to do with her perceived call into ordained ministry.   It would be very unloving of me, I think, to encourage her to stay and fight the system, or “kick against the goads.”  Rather, I’d probably encourage her to become a Methodist.

Which is why I find the current advice of one of our bishops so out of place, if not harmful.  Karen Oliveto, the UMC’s openly defiant, lesbian bishop, wrote that she will not leave the United Methodist Church, and urges others not to do so either.  Rather, they should stay and continue to fight so that the church she loves will not “derail their ministries or commitments to love all people.”   Aside from the fact that the bishop should know better – that loving someone and exercising church discipline are not mutually exclusive (amen, parents?) – why does someone who believes that the Church’s teaching is harmful to LGBT people encourage said people to stay and kick against the goads?

 

Having said that, I am mostly in agreement with the bishop at least on one point.  I don’t want to see gay people leave the church, either.   I want to see them, along with everyone else, being redeemed through the body of Christ.   I want to witness waves of people laying their disordered loves at the altar and being transformed from the inside-out.  I want to see people humbled and broken before God, willing to die to an identity rooted in sexual brokenness (this is for both gay and straight people) and rise again in Christ alone.

And none of us should expect anyone to show up at the doors of any church ready to embrace this cruciform life.  I know I’m not most of the time and I have been in church all my life!   But I do expect, and I think it’s fair to expect, that as a Church we are speaking with one voice when it comes to the things we believe Christ desires to redeem, and chief among them in our present day (as is true of all days) is how deeply fractured we are when it it comes to understanding sex and our bodies.    If we as a Church cannot be united around this, than we render ourselves double-minded and thus unstable in all our ways (James 1:8).

May we as a Church love our neighbors well by offering them gracious counsel should their conscience not allow them to abide by their Church’s teaching, and may we love those who stay well by being united in how we speak about these things which have so thoroughly divided us as of late.