Letting Go of Old Beliefs about God: A Spiritual Perspective

“Losing My Religion” Lyrics by Lauren Daigle from Google Images

Easter as an Outcry to Religion

In the spirit of Easter, I want to talk about a relevant topic to many of our spiritual journeys, the true meaning of the season, and the current religious climate in this country. Yesterday, I came across this image on Instagram:

Taken from Instagram

I ended up screenshotting it and reposting it on my personal Instagram and Facebook with the caption:

“Jesus was killed because his teachings of love and Divine Connection threatened the regime of the Roman Empire. Instead of thinking of Good Friday and Easter as “religious” holidays, we should see them as an outcry to religion and reminders of the dangers of rigid religious thinking, exclusion, and abuses of power . **#progressivechristian**”

The old belief was that Jesus was an “atoning sacrifice to our angry father, God.” Jesus never mentioned this idea, God’s judgment, hell, heaven, or anything about what happens after we die. These were all beliefs created by councils of men with political and fiscal agendas that assembled years after Jesus died.

Finding the God of My Understanding

Like many of us, I grew up with the traditional views of God being an old White man who sat on a throne, ready to strike you for your wrongdoings or was at least making a list of your good and bad deeds to determine if you were going to be sent to heaven or hell after you died. I remember being told in my early childhood, “God is watching you.” That was as creepy as the idea of Santa Claus watching you through a crystal ball, lol. But these were the beliefs that were simply passed down through my mom’s Roman Catholic family, as they are passed down through many other people’s families.

When I got into 12-Step Programs and the New Thought movement, I discovered the freedom to find the God of My Understanding. I often use other terms for God such as, “Universe,” “Spirit,” “Source,” “Divine,” “Infinite Love,” etc. because the term “God” is still kind of troubling to me. I also believe that God is an unconditionally loving spirit energy, so I often use the pronoun, “It” to describe it. These are the beliefs that many other spiritual seekers and I had to challenge about the Divine:

1. God is a Person

I have a bachelor’s degree in World Religions. During my studies, I was surprised to learn that many other religions, even Judaism and Islam, either believe that God is genderless or both male and female. In fact, in the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament, God is referred to as “Elohim,” which means “They.”

Also, the Bible says, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27, NRSV). If God created both male and female in his image, God must be both male and female 😊.

When we start believing that God is a person, we get ourselves into all kinds of trouble, such as assigning gender, race, a place to live, and judgment. Yikes!

2. God is “Out There”

Many of us were raised with the belief that God lives in the faraway sky kingdom of heaven, sitting on a throne. I have come to believe that God is omnipresent. As a spirit energy, It is everywhere and embodies everything. As my faith says, “It lives, moves, and has Its being. We live, move, and have our being in It.”

The Christian religion even believes in the Holy Spirit, but somehow only focuses on God being “out there” on a throne (shake my head)?

3. God is Angry and Judgmental

This is my favorite topic. I love how Marianne Williamson writes in A Return to Love,

“Because we are angry and judgmental, we have projected those characteristics onto Him. We have made up God in our image. But God remains Who He is and always been: the energy, the thought of unconditional love.”

Many conservative Christians like to talk about how God is angry and judgmental towards LGBTQ+ people and modern “the ways of the world.” This is because they are projecting their own prejudices and judgments onto God.

Jesus called God “abba,” which is Aramaic for “father.” This is because he believed that God is unconditionally loving. Unfortunately, this teaching was misconstrued to make people believe that God was a man to fear.

4. God Punishes and Rewards

The belief that God is a human and therefore capable of wrath and judgment made people come up with the bizarre idea that God rewards and punishes. When we were discussing the idea of the existence of a theistic God in my college philosophy class, the idea that God punishes so-called “bad” people and rewards so-called “good” people is not consistent with what we see in the world.

As for the idea of “heaven” and “hell,” I learned in my college Bible classes that there is no mention of “hell” in the Bible. The Bible only briefly mentions “Sheol,” which is the underworld. The idea of hell as we know it is from Dante Alighieri.

Marianne Williamson along with many others said, “We are punished by our sins, not for them.” A “sin” simply means “missing the mark.” A “sin” is something that produces a negative effect in our lives, such as excessive substance use, irresponsible sex, self-loathing, resentment, rage, murder, etc. It is not some arbitrary rule that the church says God will judge us on when we die, such as questioning one’s faith, being LGBTQ+, having sex outside of marriage, or using tarot cards.

5. We Must Earn God’s Favor

The Divine is unconditionally loving. We do not need to earn Its favor.

6. God Controls Everything

God does not have us on puppet strings or have every moment of our lives written in some book. If this were the case, decision-making would not be such a struggle, and people would not choose to harm others. Christianity talks a great deal about free will, after all. I believe that life is a co-creative process with the Divine. We make our choices and have dreams and plans. However, the Divine guides us to what is of the highest good for all.

Happy Easter!