What God Looks Like

It’s a child’s story in that it is about a child. It is an old story. A little girl sketches with an intensity that surprises her mother. “What are you drawing?” asks the mom. The little one answers, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” The mother is gently corrective of what she sees as unintentional blasphemy. “But nobody knows what God looks like.” Still concentrating, without looking up, the little girl answers. “They will when I finish.”

Noted conservative activist Peter LaBarbera accomplishes a lot in one recent statement: As a sympathetic Charlie Butts, relates it: LaBarbera explains God’s position on gays in the military. God votes against it. LaBarbera volunteers as a proxy for the Lord in passing judgment on the President. Obama is a lost man, “a president without a biblical conscience.”

“He affirms homosexuality as if he’s God,” charges LaBarbera, “but we know what God says and we have to stay true to that.”

Mr. LaBarbera can point to Leviticus to support discrimination against gay people. In fact, Leviticus 18:22 is not even the strongest passage, although calling gay practices an abomination is pretty strong. Other verses call for summary execution of gays. But the verse is most often quoted.

While some may see Mr. LaBarbera as harsh, we can easily find instances of his mercy. He tempers with tolerance any urge he feels to throw out of the military those who eat shellfish, a practice Leviticus also calls an abomination. Those who, while on leave, wear polyester and cotton blend shirts are also exempted from LaBarbera’s harsh judgment, for his mercy knows no bounds with the exception of sins he especially hates.

Mr. LaBarbera’s mercy extends beyond the military. He does not exhort true believers to follow Deuteronomy too precisely in the raising of their children. He draws the line at public execution of adolescents who, in a fit of teenage insanity, might disobey a parent. Although Deuteronomy is pretty clear about it, LaBarbera is more understanding. Kids will be kids. Spank them all soundly and send them to bed. Lady-in-a-shoe discipline.

No! Except for gays, most people are the beneficiaries of God’s mercy, as bestowed by Mr. LaBarbera. His focus, outside of that one area of sin, is on the positive aspects of God’s laws. For example, the Bible has many instances of the golden rule: Do unto others. When LaBarbera sells his daughter into slavery according to Biblical law, he can be expected to follow God’s word in assuring satisfaction. After all, if you bought a female slave and were dissatisfied with her … uh … services, wouldn’t you want a money back guarantee, as exemplified by Exodus 21?

Selective cherry picking scripture is a perennial temptation for those of us who follow Jesus. Harsh judgments on others is explicitly forbidden by Jesus, something red-letter Christians can tell us, but we do it anyway, don’t we? The literalist practice of sifting through passages for those very special verses that support our hatreds conforms well.

But God is not to be confined by our imagination or by the collective imaginations of ancient writers. Inspired as they were by divine presence, and I and others believe they were, they were limited by their own understanding of the wisdom of the day. Literalists manage to avoid the careful reading, the prayer, the meditation, and the context required from the rest of us as we study our Bibles.

As they indulge the common human failing of laziness, a temptation many of us share, they experience additional benefits. They get to instruct the rest of us, revealing at last exactly what God looks like. And they get to condemn those of us who disagree.

Many, many thanks to Burr Deming, the author of this article. We are honored indeed to publish this brilliant piece.

Tip o’ the hat to MMA writer John Myste, who calls Mr. Deming a “consistent creative inspiration,” and I can understand why.