Religion: The Product of the Trauma of the Holiness of God

"Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" Revelation 4:8 (ESV)

I am currently reading through a discipleship study by Greg Ogden called Discipleship Essentials. This week I have been reading about worship and how we too often miss the point of worship and worship incorrectly altogether. This is not talking strictly about what style of worship we prefer (such as contemporary or tradition music), but instead refers to our lifestyle of worship as a believer in God and Christ. In other words, how we worship reveals the God that we are worshipping.

This week I read an article by Darrell Johnson called Handling the Trauma of Holiness. In this article Johnson says that there are two essential things that get in the way of our worshipping the One God. First, we tend to create God in our own image. This is where the famous effeminate, white Jesus looking off into the distance comes in. But even more, we tend to put characteristics on God that we like and can relate too without much question. Creating a white God who is only about loving us or giving us what we want when we have enough faith is an example of this.

But in addition to creating God in our image Johnson states that many times we suppress God's revelation of himself. We refuse to look at the God he chooses to reveal to us because it also reveals us for who we really are. I haven't studied Karl Barth much, but he once said "that religion is not the fruit of humanity's pursuit of God but the product of our repression of the trauma caused by the holiness of God." When we see God for who he truly is, when we see the truth of what God has revealed to us about himself we can do nothing but see who we truly are. God is holy because there is He is totally separate from any other. God is also pure, having absolute perfection. When these two things are revealed to us we hide because the truth is too hard to take. That is, we are not worthy to even call out His name.

Taking this even more personally, I have blogged in the past about my struggle with my weight. It is nothing private because it is a sin that is very public. God has made me think about how I view him in my daily worship and I truly believe that I have been hiding from Him so that I wouldn't have to see my true self. My sinfulness. I have been holding on to this sin for too long and I will continue to hold on to it until the day I see God for who He has truly revealed Himself to me. I hope that day is soon and very soon.