Marginal Christianity

In this Post Script to my posts on God in Control I share a piece I ran across last night. In it Cameron Combs excerpts and comments on the thought of one of the best Pentecostal theologians working, Chris E. W. Green on the theme we have been considering. Worth pondering in tandem with those earlier posts in my estimation. What we think of God matters. When we have this faulty conception of God as just the strongest agent or being in existence we end up speaking of God’s action (or seemingly non-action) in the world wrongly. Green argues that we need to stop saying “God is in control” and rather start to understand that God is sovereign. Control and sovereignty are not the same thing. To say that “God is not in control” doesn’t mean that he is just as surprised at the events that take place as we are and it’s not to say that God is at “the mercy of what happens in the world.” The difference between control and sovereignty is important. Green writes,  “Sovereignty is utterly...

January 20, 2014 by Andrew Stephens-Rennie God is not in control. At least not the way you think HE is. God does not have A PLAN, at least not in the way you envision. It’s meaningless, meaningless. All is meaningless. It pains me, saddens me, makes me mad when I hear the words, “despite [insert terrible thing that has happened], I keep telling myself that God is in control. that God has [this place / these people] in the palm of HIS hands.” And while it may be true, in one way or another, while it may be true that God has the whole world in God’s hands, I guess I just don’t buy it. I don’t buy that there’s some underlying meaning to that death, that massacre, that rape, that miscarriage, that war. Read more at http://www.empireremixed.com/2014/01/20/god-is-not-in-control/