Does God Give a Damn?

One of the many things that has happened in my spiritual journey is that I have gotten sick and tired.  Say what?  What do you mean, Juan, when you say ¨sick and tired?¨  I have become sick and tired of people insisting on things that God Herself/Himself does not insist on.  I am sick and tired of Christians who insist that we have to become enslaved to a sacred text called ¨the Bibe.¨  I am also sick and tired of Christians who insist on subscribing to their particular hermeneutic (interpretation) of the Bible.  I am even more sick and tired of Christians who believe that in order for us to have what they call a ¨saving relationship¨ with God that we have to subscribe to certain creeds and doctrines which, in turn, are based on their particular biblical hermeneutic.  Does this sound peculiar and strange for a Christian preacher/theologian?  No doubt, it does. But the fact remains that I am just plainly speaking, ¨sick and tired.¨

Nowhere in the Scriptures do I read that we need to become enslaved to the Scriptures themselves in order to have a relationship with God.   What I do read in Scriptures is that God allures us to Herself/Himself through love and not through fear of punishment or reprisal.  What I also find in Scripture is that we are drawn to the God who inspired the Scripture and not to the Scripture itself as a dead and lifeless text.

Nowhere do I find in Scripture that one must subscribe to a particular interpretation of the Bible in order to have a relationship with God.  As a matter of fact, the Scriptures do not lay out any particular procedure in order to establish and form a biblical hermeneutic.  That would be very difficult, given the diverse literary styles that we find in the Bible, as well as the variety of theological perspectives that we encounter in Scripture reading.

Nowhere do I find in Scripture that one must adhere or subscribe to a particular creed, doctrine, dogma, or statement of faith in order to have a relationship with God.  I will grant that in the Scriptures we find allusion to ¨sound doctrine¨ or ¨sound teaching.¨  Nevertheless, we face some problems relative to that.  For example, what do we mean when we speak about ¨sound doctrine?¨  Who establishes sound doctrine?  By what criteria does one determine what is or isn´t ¨sound doctrine?¨

At the end of the day, I find myself concluding that in essence, God does not give a damn about these things. What then, say ye, is God concerned about you ask?  The biblical witness points to ¨taking care of business.¨ Say what? What God calls is to do is to work for social justice, i.e. taking care of the orphan, the poor, the widow, the homeless, the unemployed, the underemployed, and en fin, all who are are on a continuous basis being destroyed by oppressive human policies and structures.  God wants us to dismantle structures of institutional classism, racism, sexism, also to dismantle those policies which result in the destruction of God´s creation, i.e. the environment.   These are the things that God gives a damn about. Get on board.

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen.

Dr. Juan A. Carmona

Visiting Professor of Theology
Tainan Theological College/Seminary