Fr. Jack Sproule Reflection on ‘Conceptions of God’

Letters to the editor

Fr. Jack Sproule Reflection on ‘Conceptions of God’

Volume 30  Issue 4, 5 & 6 | Posted: July 7, 2016

     I am very much interested in the possible need for a new conception of God, the experience of the Divine in Canada as we approach the year 2000.
     I experience the “God I was trained in”: the deterministic, self-contained, dominative God, the one pathway God, the powerful God who controls from outside, in fact the authoritative outsider, supreme God who is to be served… I experience that concept of God as too flat and one dimensional… not multidimensional like the Greek gods were and that were interesting. I am not much interested in linear thinking. I like lateral thinking. I believe the notion of God is meant to connect me, and the common Christian language and images do not do it.

     I am very much interested in the possible need for a new conception of God, the experience of the Divine in Canada as we approach the year 2000.
     I experience the “God I was trained in”: the deterministic, self-contained, dominative God, the one pathway God, the powerful God who controls from outside, in fact the authoritative outsider, supreme God who is to be served… I experience that concept of God as too flat and one dimensional… not multidimensional like the Greek gods were and that were interesting. I am not much interested in linear thinking. I like lateral thinking. I believe the notion of God is meant to connect me, and the common Christian language and images do not do it.
     I never did make much sense out of the mechanistic model of religion, church, government, teaching, etc. but I am discovering myself now and I am evolving myself into a wholistic paradigm.
     No longer do I find adequate a conception of God “out-there”, a God of isolation, unrelated, autonomous. I am interested in the “Divine energy” as continually interrelating, an energy of interdependence and cooperation, one of unfolding processes, not an image of a static world view. 
     I believe change is real and that growth depends on it. I believe that progress is evolutionary, cyclic in nature, that all is meant to exist and grow in mutual interdependence. I believe nothing can be fully understood in isolation. I make a distinction between religion, faith and spirituality.
     I also believe that Jesus did not bring the Kingdom, rather the Kingdom brought Jesus – although I realize that this is still Christian language. However, I also realize that I am concerned with the whole of life, especially the human realm.
     I am interested in and, I think, I help people birth spiritual values not necessarily religious behaviour. I am not concerned about getting people into church but about getting the church into the world, however only if the church is working toward letting go of power and control tactics, security, walls, roles, black and white moralities, pride, submission, obligations, taking care of others, reaction blame, guilt… only if the church is interested in cooperating with all sorts of peoples in healing the whole person and the whole planet.
     These beliefs invite me into life, into relationships with people, into revelations, into seeing the possibilities of good religion that calls that calls people into generosity, courage, faith and hope.
     I look forward to hearing from you.
     Jack Sproule