I'm sure that some of you remember the good ol' game of Would Your Rather. You remember, it was that boredom fueled game in which someone presented you with two TERRIBLE scenarios and the infamous question when then be asked. One example would be as follows. Would you rather drink a bottle of Windex, or get your head stuck in the bowling-ball return (I know that both of these options sound incredibly tempting)?
Sometimes I feel that in the overall American church, many well intentioned Christians are forced to play the not so friendly game of "Would You Rather" theology. Just a clarification, I am in no way bashing the Church. I have been apart of the body of Christ for many years and will be the first to raise my hand in my admittance of being severely flawed. However, I have noticed a trend, especially in many American churches. It seems that there are so many denominations today that each individual street-corner church could possibly create there own sub-set of Christianity. I understand that we have differences in minor issues and have no problem with different points of view. The trend that I have seen lately is that many different sets of Christianity seem to focus solely on one aspect of God's personality, thus making their theology extremely one-sided and skewed. Again I am not pointing a finger, but I am scratching my head.
For instance, many Christians tend to focus exclusively on the grace and mercy of God, and for good reason (we would be DEAD without it). But when that's the only lens in which we view the Lord God seems to become like the "fun uncle" of the cosmos who lets anything go. The result becomes a very messy and subjective lifestyle. On the other hand, some others view and focus only on the wrath and anger of God. God has every right to be angry with the rebellion of men. Justice is an extremely necessary aspect of God's character. However, if God is mostly viewed as an angry tyrant, then there is a dangerous amount of ritualistic religion that sucks the life out of a Christian worldview. I truly believe that we must view God's gambit of characteristics as a whole without a particular bias, lest we become narrow minded and stuck. If God is only graceful, then he's kind of a pushover with no moral compass. Everything becomes complete chaos. If he is just angry and wrathful, then we will always set him off and disappoint him in our minds, and in turn, live an unrealistic and unattainably perfection-driven lifestyle. That lifestyle leaves us about as dead as a doornail. You would be better off getting some change of address forms and moving in to a nice cozy coffin with a spiritual flat-line.
To sum it up, it seems that our own human tendancies tend to tap us on the shoulder and ask "Would you rather live in a coffin, or float around in utter chaos?" To be honest, I'd rather not do either. Love God for his entire being, not one side of him. Thank goodness he doesn't view only one aspect of us, because chances are that any part of us would probably be tainted by some sort of sin. I think I would rather worship God for allowing me to view and know him at all, plus, I have never been a fan of Windex or bowling.
