Does a Baby Move Alot Right Before Labor
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, know that resources are available. Text: 741741, phone call one-800-273-TALK (8255), or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
A couple of months agone, the New York Times ran a fascinating article called "Googling for God." In this piece, author Seth Stephens-Davidowitz explores recent trends in Google search data specifically related to questions people pose about God. Stephens-Davidowitz notes that the number one God-related question people ask on Google is, "Who created God?" Non surprisingly, number ii is "Why does God let suffering?" However, I was shocked and dismayed to see the question that came in at number three: "Why does God hate me?"
Stephens-Davidowitz and so provides an fifty-fifty more troubling piece of data: "What is the most common give-and-take to complete the following question: Why did God make me ___? Number one, by far, is 'ugly.' The other sad answers in the acme three are 'gay' and 'black.'" Although the author of this commodity does non explicitly link "Why does God detest me?" and "Why did God brand me ___?" I couldn't help simply wonder if there might be some connectedness between the ii questions. After all, if you believe God made you "ugly," it's non a stretch to believe God hates you, too, since in our civilisation "ugly" is a very negative term that is used to denigrate people based, primarily, on their appearance. In the same manner, given that those who identify every bit blackness or gay are ofttimes marginalized in our gild—or even targeted for violence on the ground of those identities—information technology'south not hard to imagine that members of those groups might experience that God is, at best, indifferent to their plight, or, at worst, that God has hand-picked them to exist oppressed and mistreated.
Reading this article made me securely deplorable, considering it made me realize just how many incorrect ideas about God are still out there, and how securely those ideas are hurting people. Although the church building certainly teaches that we are all sinners and have fallen short of God's glory, it too fundamentally affirms that each i of us is created in the image of God and that through God's grace we are loved unconditionally. Somehow it seems that this crucial bulletin has gotten lost in the wider culture, because equally the Google data show, people searching on the Internet for answers to their organized religion questions seem to presume that God is primarily a judgmental, arbitrary tyrant who selectively applies oppression and suffering to sure groups, or who makes some people "ugly" and others non.
The trouble here is that it's not God who is doing this labeling and excluding—it's human beings. We are the ones who have created societies in which individuals are judged based on their physical advent or on their membership in particular demographic groups, rather than on the content of their character or according to their unique gifts and skills. We—not God—are the ones who have decided that some are "in" and some are "out," which is in direct contrast to the bulletin nosotros hear over and over over again in Scripture: that God has come into the world to reconcile all people, through grace that is freely given to everyone. Every bit the church, nosotros are chosen to find new means to spread the message of God'south grace and love far and broad, and so that we might challenge and dismantle the erroneous theology that is causing people so much harm. My prayer is that one day, in the not-then-distant future, Google might study their summit God-related searches as "Why does God care for me then much?" and "Why did God make me and then cute and beloved?" May it be and then.
The Rev. Dr. Leanna Chiliad. Fuller is assistant professor of pastoral care at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and teaches in the MDiv Programme. Her ministry feel includes serving as associate pastor of Oakland Christian Church in Suffolk, Va., where she coordinated youth ministry and Christian education programming. She writes regularly on pastoral intendance and counseling, pastoral theology, and congregational conflict.
In the well-nigh iv years since this blog post went live, we have received record numbers of comments and eastward-mails. We cheers for your interest and engagement with this topic. We are thankful that we accept been able to proclaim a message of promise and beloved to and then many who take longed to hear it. We have kept the commenting for this weblog active as long as possible, fifty-fifty though we sometimes must disable comments on our older blog posts. Unfortunately, every bit we arroyo our fourth year, the commenting feature will no longer exist bachelor.
Although we can no longer actively moderate and reply to comments on this article, we realize that the topic is important to many of our readers. If you would like to discuss problems like this in greater depth, we encourage you to connect with a congregation or pastor in your area. If yous are uncomfortable discussing this topic with a pastor, consider speaking with a advisor.
If you take struggled with this question or others similar it, or if you or someone you know is because suicide, know that resources are available. Text: 741741, call 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
Thanks for your chat over these last years! Once again, recollect the words of the article above: you are created in the paradigm of God and through God's grace y'all are loved unconditionally.
Source: https://www.pts.edu/blog/why-does-god-hate-me/
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