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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

How a dysfunctional view of "God" becomes
an opiate of the people, a hindrance to
clear thinking, and a barrier to authentic faith.

return to the main-page article on "God"

The following is an excerpt from "God, Humanity, and the Nature of the Universe" by Prof. David Bumbaugh, Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago:

I grew up in a religious tradition in which God was a charter member -- the focus of prayers and sermons, the source of all wisdom, the creator of the world, the protector of all who embraced the true faith, the ultimate source of justification and redemption and an endless source of comforting nostalgia.

Over time it became clear to me that behind any theoretical statement, God had a clearly functional role within the religious community in which I grew up. By invoking God, people clothed
their opinions with unassailable sanctity. In essence, God became the answer that was essentially unanswerable, the mechanism by which difficult questions were evaded and old habits of thought
were allowed to continue unchallenged.

As I grew from childhood and adopted a more critical attitude toward the world, and the way religion functioned in that world, the clearer it became to me that God was used as a way papering over the abyss, a way to domesticate the vast mystery of this universe and of our own existence within it.

If people wondered how the world came to be, and why it is as it is, the answer was "God." If people wondered why suffering existed in the world, the answer was "God." If people wondered why some were set to rule over others, why some had so much while others had so little, inevitably, the answer was "God." Over and over again in my experience, God was a mechanism used to stop deep questioning, to repress just anger and to encourage the acceptance of things as they are. Long before I had heard of Karl Marx, I had
experienced God as the great opiate.

As I grew in understanding, this response to life began to offend me. I found myself questioning the existence of God, and dropping God-talk from my discourse, not because I ceased to believe but because "God" had become a barrier to faith. I could not permit the mystery, the wonder, the awe, the challenge of the world to be dimmed or dulled by a soporific named God. I could not allow the hunger for justice to be slaked, nor anger at the status quo to be weakened by the distant promise called God.

The absence of God from my universe of discourse, however, does not imply an absence of faith. There is much that I do firmly believe. I believe we are part of a universe that is dynamic and evolving and ever-changing. I believe that there is a directive in the history of that universe, that change is not random but reveals direction. The universe moves from singularity to multiplicity, from simplicity to complexity, from lesser to greater mindfulness, from necessity to choice...