When I look around me (and even at myself), it seems easy
enough to create god(s) in our own image. It appears that every generation emphasise
those aspects of God that ‘fit’ the current worldview and ignore those that don’t. The previous
generations, for example, had a strong hierarchical view of society. God,
therefore, was on the side of those in authority who keep society in good order.
Emphasis was therefore laid on society subjecting to authority.
The current generation(s) (not that I’m sure which one I’m
talking about or I’m part of) rejects any form of authority. God is now siding
with the underdog and those in need, and is actually kind of against those in
power. We do not hear anything anymore on submission to authority – not even
the authority of our parents or teachers. God somehow disproves of anything
non-democratic. Democracy on every level of life is now good and “god's will”. Even deciding
what God is ‘like’ or what ‘kind’ of God he is, should be decided democratically.
Like the queen of England, who is ruled by the likes and dislikes of her ‘subjects’,
God is shaped by the taste and distastes of the current worldview.
When I listen to Christians, I sometimes think that we have ended
up with a god very different from the one we meet in the Bible – especially the
one in the Old Testament. It seems easier to fit Jesus into our mould than YHWH
– easier to fashion him into the ‘kind’ of god that suits us.
Either way, if we end up with a god different from the one
who revealed himself in both the Old and New Testament, we end up with an idol.
Fretheim (1984:2) writes, “… idolatries do not need the plastic form to qualify
as such. One can move directly to mental images which construct a false image
of God…”
Asking the question about the ‘kind’ of God we are dealing
with in the Old Testament (even if we find him to be too embarrassing for our
modern world) appears an important one. We might think we are worshipping God while
we are actually making ourselves guilty of idolatry – the Old
Testament story is quite clear what God thinks of idolatry.
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