Do Christians Resent God? (#841)

Mark Galli, a former editor of Christianity Today, thinks it's important for Christians to admit that they really don't want anything to do with God. In fact, they resent him, considering him a nuisance with his ethical demands or a disappointment for not rescuing us from trouble the way Scripture promises. What's more, he concludes that God isn't even helpful in our attempts to build a relationship with him. Is he right? Certainly, many Christians feel this way, even if they are afraid to. voice it. But his approach to God and his conclusions about the journey are not the way God sees it. They are the rocks on which religion leaves people shipwrecked. Wayne and Kyle work through his column to show there's a much better way to see this journey and discover the God who finding every way to help us know him.

Podcast Notes:
Let's Face It: We Resent God by Mark Galli
Wayne's upcoming Travel

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3 Comments

  1. Hi Bros,

    Amen and wow! You both had put into words so well the feelings I have been having but too afraid to address them to Father. There is definitely a lot to think about here but I think I have a sense of how to approach this issue better 🙂 What a awesome, passionate conversation this week – many thanks and hope all is well.

  2. If this article is in any way autobiographical, then I’m not surprised. To become a Catholic is to major in guilt and God is so transcendent that countless intermediaries are needed to even try to reach him, and even then there is no certainty he is interested in us. However, I think it also speaks to the condition of much evangelicalism today, and if as you say, this brother has spent all his life in evangelicalism, it puts us in a very bad light if this is all he has learned.

    Anyone who says they resent God and his ‘demands’ is consumed by self and has little heart knowledge of forgiveness, and is certainly not living in the Spirit. Didn’t Jesus say that whoever has been forgiven little loves little, and whoever is forgiven much, loves much? And that when we are weary and burdened we may come to him and he will give us rest? Then his yoke is easy and his burden is light. But I can’t remember the last time I heard a sermon on sin and the sinful nature. The subject of repentance is almost unknown, and the prevailing view is that God is the supplier of the American Dream. No wonder people resent him and are full of disappointment because God has been misrepresented. How sad.

    Most of the pastoral problems I see are either caused by a light view of sin, or a distortion of it that limits it only to other people, coupled with an unwillingness to repent. To experience the love of God is not to focus on the self but others. Otherwise, it can get too introspective. “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (I John 4:7,8)

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