“The gods are dying. The gods of this world are sick unto death.  …Which gods? The gods that we worship. The gods that our enemies worship. Their sacred names? There is Science, for one: he who was to redeem the world from poverty and disease, on whose mighty shoulders mankind was to be borne onward and upward toward the high stars. There is Communism, that holy one so terrible in his predilection for blood sacrifice but so magnificent in his promise of the messianic age: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Or Democracy, that gentler god with his gospel of freedom for all peoples, including those people who after centuries of exploitation and neglect at the hands of the older democracies can be set free now only to flounder in danger of falling prey to new exploiters. And we must not leave out from this role of the dying what often passes for the god of the church: the god who sanctifies our foreign policy and our business methods, our political views and our racial prejudices. The god who, bless him, asks so little and promises so much: peace of mind, the end of our inferiority complexes. Go to church and feel better. The family that prays together stays together. Not everybody can afford a psychiatrist or two weeks of solid rest in the country, but anybody can afford this god. He comes cheap. These are the gods in whom the world has puts its ultimate trust. …And where are they now?  …Where is the security that they promised? Where is the peace? The terrible truth is that the gods of this world are no more worthy of our ultimate trust than are the men who created them.” Frederick Buechner

“O God, you are my God;
I earnestly search for you …
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.”
Psalm 63:1

 Moving From Head to Heart

• Science, politics and religion – each in it’s own way and time, seemed so promising. Have you seen the limitations of each? If so, does that affect your practice of any of them?
• Do you ever think of shortcomings of “the god of the church?” If so, what are they?
• Is your “ultimate trust” actually in something man-made?
• Is your understanding of god obscuring your view of the God who is there?

Abba, we long to know you as you are – or at least we think we do.

For More:  The Magnificent Defeat by Frederick Buechner