Friday – Depraved Gods

I’ve been reading about the rise of Christianity, and it’s remarkable how at its inception the social milieu could not have been more favorable for Christianity’s success. One such circumstance was that the Greek poets and philosophers were already questioning the many atrocities and cruelties associated with the gods. Plato and the sophists after him ridiculed the gods, and slowly the attraction and power of the polytheistic world waned. As Michael Green put it, in the Greco-Roman world “it was not that men became so depraved that they abandoned their gods, but rather that the gods become so depraved that they were abandoned by men” (Evangelism in the Early Church). This created an openness to consider new ways of thinking of God. This has me wondering about people’s encounter with Christianity today. When people rebuff our beliefs, the Church has been quick to blame those who reject it as not having the eyes of faith to see the truth. But what if it is the images we use that repel people? What if the problem is not God but the words we use to depict God? Often we make our words and God coequal, but they are not. Whatever words we use must be chosen with great care and offered as a glimpse not as the whole.