Dance God Bear, Dance

Flicking through GodTV type channels (I know I know!) and a passionate guys was, I am sure sincerely, trying to help people live a full life - you know 'prosperity'. Anyway the guy said an amazing thing - "You must know how to activate the release of gods favour"

Wow - what a thing to say. No doubt this would then be followed by the exact process (e.g prayer of Jabez type stuff, donate(read buy) to get my prayer cloth etc etc) to follow to twist God's arm and make him dance

What an outrageous conceit, surely total idolatry, perhaps even divine puppetry - mastering the master to have him do our bidding. Who is God in this equation?

It reminded me of reading How (not) to Speak of God by Pete Rollins. Although he is tackling our intellectual/systemising reduction of God, this prosperity gospel stuff is surely another version of boxing and using God for our own purposes - Yikes - that ain't right! - but its always a danger.

Here are some quotes from Rollins that came to mind:

“God is not the object of our thoughts, but rather, he is the “absolute subject before whom we are the object.”

“To take our ideas of the divine and hold them as if they correspond to the reality of God is thus to construct a conceptual idol built from the materials of our mind”

“Christians testify to having been caught up in and engulfed by that which utterly transcends them.”

H(N)TSOG - get it on the Christmas list (alternatively stick with a little God you can keep on tight reins)