SS0 - Is tolerance simply a higher form of compromise?

 Research points to modern man’s religious experience as wavering between humanism and belief in an "Ordinary God"

When researchers in Great Britain went door-to-door asking persons about their belief in God one of their questions: "Do you believe in a God who intervenes in human history? One who changes the course of affairs, who performs miracles, etc.?" When published, their study took its title from the response of one man who was seen as rather typical of those who responded. He answered simply, "No, I don't believe in that God; I believe in the ordinary God."

How many of our friends, neighbors, and family believe in "just the ordinary God"?

A.W. Tozer says emphatically that, 'What comes to our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us' (Tozer, Knowledge Of The Holy , 1).

In working toward my Master’s degree in philosophy I attended a prestigious Jesuit school, New York’s Fordham University. Many arguments for and against God’s existence and our concept of ‘our’ God were explored, often through throwing the questionable virtue of straw men into the battle. Father Varga often spoke of the need to be fully aware of who our God is’ “we must constantly be on guard against worshipping a god that is smaller than the biblical God.”

Anselm’s ontological argument of a priori proof of God's existence was one I found logical and use most often if asked or challenged. Anselm starts with premises that do not depend on experience for their justification and then proceeds by purely logical means to the conclusion that God exists.

Anselm presents it as; “... we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. By "God" he means an absolutely unsurpassable being, a being that cannot conceivably be improved upon.

One need not agree, but treating it as a stipulation to establish the existence of a being of this sort, Anselm’s and our conclusion would be of immense philosophical and theological significance.

Both the believer and doubter understand what is said and what it means. Let him who hath ears… What he hears he understands; becomes his understanding, although he does not understand or accept it to exist. Anselm's assumption here is that if I understand claims about God, then we may say that God exists in my understanding or in my mind.

Yet our highest thoughts of God do not do justice to His greatness. That is why Paul exclaims "How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? "(Rom. 11:33, 34).

Many will remember a book that many deemed to become a classic, Your God Is Too Small, by J. B. Phillips. Although written almost half a century ago Phillips' observation remain just as true, if not more so today: ‘the trouble facing many of us today is that we have not found a God big enough for our modern needs. In a world where our experience of life has grown in myriad directions, and our mental horizons have been expanded to the point of bewilderment by world events and scientific discoveries, our ideas of God have remained largely static. It is nearly impossible’, Phillips argues, ‘for an adult to worship the conception of God that exists in the mind of a child of Sunday-school age, the "God-in-a-box" notion, limiting God to such inadequate conceptions as "Resident Policeman," "Grand Old Man," "Meek-and-Mild," and "Managing Director." As a result of these insufficient ideas of God, many people live with an inner dissatisfaction, without any faith at all.

Your God Is Too Small explores the ways in which we can find a truly meaningful and constructive God for ourselves, but instead many sign off from what constitutes life’s truly most important search, the one meant to command our highest admiration and devotion. Romans 12: 2 is translated by Phillips in these oft-quoted words: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.”

Yet how many tire of trying? “At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Yesterday morning as we motored the one-hour journey to my wife’s hometown on Mother’s Day, to meet up with her mum for morning worship, we listened to a BBC program where Peter Hitchins was interviewed. Although not as well known as his older brother, who died 2 years ago, his wit, quick recall of history and delivery were clearly honed in the same home and schools. I miss the wit and enthusiasm of his brother Chris and I’m pleased that he eventually settled in the USA making him a frequent contributor to various publications in addition to his regular pieces in Vanity Fair. Most entertaining and rich for me was his guest appearance on talk shows.

Peter said in the BBC interview. “Here’s a thing I will say now without hesitation, unqualified and important. The one word that comes to mind when I think of my brother is ‘courage’…” His courage” is what he wants to remember most about his brother.

“My brother possessed this virtue to the very end, and if I often disagreed with the purposes for which he used it, I never doubted the quality or ceased to admire it.”

Despite their opposing views, the Hitchens brothers debated rather amicably IN 2010, each respecting the view of the other. After “the longest quarrel of [Peter’s] life” in 2008, the younger Hitchens said at the time he no longer held hope to convert his brother, whom he described as having "bricked himself up high in his atheist tower, with slits instead of windows from which to shoot arrows…” railing against the strawman, the moronic, immature, unsophisticated, fundamentalist, outdated, and mired in arguments most Christians dismissed years ago. And they're all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher could in his New York Times best-selling, God Is Not Great, ‘a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages.

So how far have we come, and what about the non-officer spouse? Is he or she a part of the postmodern people, culturally pluralistic?

Is their God the ‘ordinary God, or the being of which nothing greater can be conceived, or the one an often unkempt and perspiring Hitchins worked so hard to dismiss from today’s common man; God Is Not Great?

So, how do we preach in a world that is culturally pluralistic and to those signing on as ‘partners’ in the ministry? We do so by …

Sven Ljungholm