Pet-Peeve Alert: This blog is a rant…hmmm…(attempting to sound more pastoral)….a reflection on the downright silly, thoughtless and even dangerous things people say about God. Bad theology just bugs the heck out of me.  

Okay, I know some people are bothered by other people’s driving habits, people who stand at the front of a long line trying to decide what to order and owners who don’t pick up after their dogs, and I am bothered by those things as well, but on my mind today is bad theology.  Maybe not even bad theology, but poor theology, expressions about God that are fired away with all the benign intention of a loose cannon.

Let me give you an example. I was in the airport the other day when I overheard two young women discussing a friend of theirs, a young wife and mother, who apparently had a very serious illness. They lovingly expressed concern for their friend and her family, and then in a moment of quiet befitting the sad situation, one of the women said, “Well, God’s ways are not our ways.” The other woman nodded, in resigned submission to the dastardly will of God. In moments such as this, it is all I can do not to dive into the middle of these strangers’ conversation and defend the good name of God. It would go something like this: “Umm, excuse me, but I could not help but overhear your conversation. I am very sorry to hear about your friend. (Getting down to business) But do you really think that God’s way/will is for your friend to suffer? To die a young and untimely death? Is God just cruel and capricious, deciding that it was in the best interest of young children to lose their young mother?  Is God indifferent to human life?! Incapable of understanding love?” Geesh! At this point, the now speechless women would have called for security.

Indeed our will is not always God’s will, but when it comes to suffering, can we all just agree that God does not will their young friend to die? Suffering in all of its forms (disease, war, famine, loss…the list goes on and on) has rendered mute even the most faithful of followers and the most articulate of theologians. I totally understand why the women in the airport cast the blame on God. There are a lot of things in life that leave us with deep, unanswered question. Throwing out a statement like “God’s ways are not our ways,” may attempt the fill the void with pat and vaguely anesthetizing answer. Even when they don’t make a lot of sense, sometimes any answers can seem better than no answers.

It may just be me, but for my deepest questions, I would take silence and empathy to poor attempts at theology any day of the week. I’ve always appreciated the apostle Paul’s statement that when we don’t know what to pray, the Spirit intercedes with “sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Indeed, the illness of a young mother is heartbreaking. I believe God weeps right along with this family. I trust God holds her, her husband and children in God’s loving hands. I won’t attempt to explain or theologize her illness.  All I can do is sigh… and lift her up to God.

While I could go on at this point about theodicy (the fancy words theologians use when they want to talk about God and suffering), I’ll save that for another day. My rant today is about words and the power they possess. Words matter. What we say shapes us. We are formed by what we believe and what we say about what we believe. When we are talking about the Divine, the Creator of the Universe, the Sustainer of Life, the One whose nature and name is Love, we ought to be careful. I say “be careful” not for God’s sake (God can handle all the insults we hurl God’s way) but for the sake of honoring all that is holy. If we say that God is loving, we ought not say in the very next breath that God’s ways would somehow favor the death of a young mother. Words matter. We live in a world of pundits and “talking heads,” where wordiness is lucrative, regardless of whether or not the words have value. But when it comes to talking about God, it is my humble opinion that we ought to choose our words more carefully. Throwing around platitudes and theological jargon is not only meaningless, it can also cause harm. Please, please, be careful. Words matter.

Okay, that is my rant. I shall stop now… and say a prayer for sick moms and their children. Sigh…

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