A Critic of the Almighty? Then the LORD said to Job: Will we have arguing with the Almighty by the critic? Let him who would correct God give answer! (Job 40:1-2, NAB). Reading this verse in the Office really struck a chord with me, so much that I stopped in my tracks and reflected on it (of course I should do that with all Scripture). How many times have people of all churches and theologies been critics of the Almighty? I wish I had a quarter for everyone who said they could never find a perfect church, i.e. a church that totally agreed with them. At one point people submitted to the Church, but an unhappy result of the Protestant Reformation (an unintended one to be sure) is that no one submits to anything anymore, with the possible exception of his or her ego. Before anyone thinks I'm idealizing Rome, it's worth mentioning that large majorities of Catholics openly disagree with their Church on important matters too. It's not a Protestant problem, just a problem. Especially, on the left critics of the Almighty are numerous. The liberals at least admit that God has changed his God's mind. Or rather, we have changed God's mind for him God. Liberals have given us every form of criticism under the sun. God may have revealed it one way, but we know what he God would have said if he God had the benefit of being a 21st century person. Of course then, God would also have the "sense" to reveal himself Godself without a male pronoun! Of course liberals are more than happy to point out the "flaws" in God's revelation. The result is that we now have whole organizations devoted to telling us what God or Jesus really meant to say. Usually the results are predicatable: God and Jesus said very little about morality, the miraculous, or doctrine, but talked alot of vauge social liberalism. Darn it, I knew if we could just get past the dogma and miraculous Jesus would be a socialist before socialism! I'm not a liberal, but I'm guilty of this attitude too. Many conservative, mainstream Christians are too. Look even at Protestant conservatives and their willingness to correct the Almighty. Jesus said divorce is prohibited, but most evangelicals have higher divorce rates than non Christians. On the issue of women in the church, most evangelicals ignore some of the clear statements in the Pastoral Epistles. In a couple generations, will these same groups that used to believe divorce was wrong, embrace gay marriage if/when it becomes culturally mainstream? After all, 50 years ago, you'd be hard pressed to find an evangelical who apporoved of divorce. Although less brazen, even conservative Christians are more than willing to correct the Almighty. So, it goes across all churches and the whole theological spectrum. Maybe it's an American thing. Our rugged individualism has served us well in our secular history, but in our religious experience it's been a disaster. With 30,000+ denominations, we should be scandalized. Jesus prayed we would all be one as he and the Father are one, not be 30,000 as he and the Father are one. Our spirit that impelled us to separate from England should not be license to have daily revolutions in our churches to create more and more denominations. I think if Luther could foresee what has become of Protestantism, he probably would've taken a different path to reform. But then again, he couldn't have anticipated American post-modernism!