own personal experiences. This latter god may be a convenient extension of the relationships with our par ents. If we see parenthood in terms of indulgence, we may see God as a grandfather. If we see parents as arbitrary, rigid, and without real understanding of our emotional struggles, we usually imprison our image of God in the same rigidity. But in either case, we do not know God. We think we passify Him by compulsive at tendance to His demands. All of this is a kind of grand self-atonement and not Christianity. Fear and not strength lie at the heart of such images of God. Instead we need the Jesus who had strong, oft-times violent emotions. A kind of passive Christian education whch sees Jesus as indulgent re-enforces what our fam ilies experience in this culture. If we can only disen tangle God as He is from what we fear Him to be, then we can identify with Jesus as He is. We then can be merciful and just. God’s mercy only has meaning when we see His justice. As we identify with His sense of justice and direction, we are able to be really merci ful. Mercy has no meaning without this proper relation ship to authority. We yearn for meaningfulness, whether by retention of the fervor and piety of the past or a new piety set in the midst of today’s issues. This comes not by passivity. As we find real peace with God as a benevolent authority and can trust in his control, we then can control our selves. Despite our fears, then we can readily discern and deal with the kind of arbitrariness, the malevolent authority, which we fear will destroy us. The pulpit is often seen as a feminine institution in our time. If it is this way, it is because the pew wants it so We seek the peacemaker, the politician, not the proph et. But a pulpit which dares to stir anxiety and guilty feelings in a desirable way brings with it the possibility of real help. The prophetic message is necessary to awak en the conscience lulled to sleep by passivity. We cry for renewal, for the Olympian courage to convey the message of hope. This will come as we break free from our authority struggles. These are both individual and group struggles. In closing, let me refer to one standard objective to the use of psychological insights in matters spiritual. This theological objection to “ knowing one’s self” is that it focuses on problems rather than on grace. Yet how can a man accept grace if he knows not those things from which he needs deliverance? Significantly the church is chronically opt of touch with the experiences of those in the pew. The church is no longer the place where these problems are shared. This could have been and can be avoided. Perhaps only in the church can res olution to these things come. Perhaps only as we take these conflicts, these struggles for identity, seriously and see them from a spiritual point of view can the seculari zation of life be impeded. Perhaps then what is now called psychological, emotional, or sociological may real ly be seen as spiritual. What are we to do? We can take this understanding of ourselves and yearn to be free. We can know God by the Spirit as a firm and yet compassionate authority. W ill this make us little pieces of God, “ chips off the old block” ? Am I simply to try to be like God? As we know the death in which we languish, we will know the signifi cance of the life to which we are called. Then we may be healed by grace. ED. NOTE: Dr. Esau is Director of the Covenant Counseling Center of North Park Theological Seminary, Foster and Kedzie Avenues, Chicago 25, 111. This article is reprinted by permis sion of the author and of Editor F. Burton Nelson, of The Covenant Quarterly , in which it first appeared.
(Authority Continued) come in conflict. The wisdom of one parent’s standing predominantly for mercy and the other parent pre dominantly for judgment again comes into focus. If the church is to take the attitude that the changing culture cannot be dealt with or that the biblical image of mas culinity and paternity is not really authoritative but that these matters should be culturally determined and made socially relevant, then the church becomes a simple social organization, a club. If, on the other hand, the biblical picture is normative, we can therein examine ourselves and the influences our culture has had upon us. Only then can we change. What we have said of the parent-child relationships is true of the marriage relationship as well. A woman’s essential role of receptivity and, in turn, of providing sup port and mercy to the children is fragmented by the cultural demand for equality in every sphere. The wom an who is really experiencing fulfillment yearns for dependency and the sense of being protected. If instead she must bear masculine responsibility and become an authority figure, in dealing with her own dependency needs she may indeed reject the dependency needs of her child. The primary feminine qualities of receptivity, passivity, and the desire to mother shape a woman’s emotional life. Right in this context, isn’t it significant how much suspicion has been placed on the submissive role in our culture? To be dependent and in need of support connotes weakness. The male role of aggressive ness and a certain degree of dominance carries with it the idea of responsibility and control. Perhaps at this point our American culture is most unhealthy. The two sexes are losing their distinctive identities. Without this sharp definition of identity, marriage is not satisfying. If one is ambiguous in what he wants from his mate and his children, he will be unable to give what the other partner needs. The overprotective and dominating mother usually reflects a marriage in which authority and submission are unsettled issues. If a woman domi nates and at the same time wishes to be dominated and a man brings to a marriage a desire to be mothered as well as a desire to be aggressive, little health can come out of this. The significance of these statements might well be accepted on a sociological level. So often, how ever, the church is blind to the fact that these conditions exist in every church and in many American families, regardless of Christian conviction and loyalty. In fact, one’s use of Christianity can be an expression of this problem. In all this struggle with authority relationships, our idea of God suffers most. Higher criticism may not be any more responsible for our relativistic outlook on Christianity than changing family patterns may be. The “ grandfather in Heaven” concept of God prevalent to day may be a product of our cultural changes, the evi dence of a senile Christianity which has been unable to deal with changing conditions. We seem less able to declare a God who can deliver us from our turmoil, let alone lead us to shape new horizons. On the other hand, in a most significant manner, we lose just as much of the reality of Christ as God when we rest in legalisms. Both extremes, the passive grandfather-God and the legal- ism-God, fail to reach us where we are. Both pervert au thority. We have a perverted view of God in our emo tions as we have a perverted view of the family in our culture. I wonder if we really consider the origin of such religious feeling! In The Self in Pilgrimage, by Earl A. Loomis Jr., M.D., there is a reference to the three gods which every man has. There is the gocj. of the group, the doctrinal god. There is God as He really is, and there is god as we have come to believe him to be because of our
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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