Overcoming Angry God

Searching for a God who is otherwise

“In the beginning” is a powerful phrase. If you are like me, somebody who grew up in the lines of protestant evangelicalism, this phrase is loaded. Most of us are brought back to the stories of creation we learned in Sunday school. It also brings our attention to the first lines of the Gospel according to John.

My beginning for a Human Catechism, a different way of being human, starts with my family of origin. I grew up as a preacher’s kid. I learned my Bible stories from very early on. It was in my family of origin that I first experienced who God is. From a very early age, my siblings and I were indoctrinated to an image of God who was both loving and wrathful. And, this created a spiritual dissonance that made us fear and love not only God but also humanity, the world, our city. 

As I grew up, the god I experience in protestant evangelicalism was very angry. The same god that murdered his son to satiate his thirst for blood also gave my father the right to beat me. I mean, many interpret the Bible as if it gives permission to beat children into obedience, and to claim that God murdered his son on the cross to apease his wrath. That is why, as I grow older I have come to call this interpretation of God, Angry God.

Angry God has been quite an interesting figure and idea to overcome. It hast taken me years to recover from the fear of hell, guilt, and the shame of evangelical purity culture imposes in the name of Angry God.  In my book, A Human Catechism, I try to untangle myself from the image of a violent Angry God and ask the question of whether it is possible to believe in a God in whom there is no violence.

The question about whether God is violent or not has deep implications. In the Genesis story, the beginning, we are told that God created humanity in God’s likeness and image. In other words, if the God who created us is angry and wrathful, then it makes sense for us humans to be as violent and enraged as we can get. However, if the God who created us is in rivalry and violence towards nothing and nobody, our task is to become more human in the same way.

As somebody who carries the weight of surviving violence and physical abuse, I am tired of seeing and experiencing violence. Also, I am tired of perpetrating it, even its most benign ways. Even more so, my heart aches when I see how many of us use the image of Angry God to justify hate and violence. That is why I would rather find a way to believe in a God in whom there is no violence than stay attached to the rituals that keep me chained to the idol of Angry God. Would you like to join me in tearing apart the violent theologies and images of God that keep us captive? If so, suscribe to my newsletter and feel free to engage in conversation.