Making God Believable: Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD
Making God Believable
When Etty Hillesum, the young Dutch writer who would die at Auschwitz, was preparing to leave the transit camp at Westerbork for the train that would carry her eastward, she scribbled a few final notes to her friends. In one of them, she attempted to explain what she believed was taking place:
“Someone has to take responsibility for God in this situation. That is, someone has to behave as if God were real. Someone has to make God credible by the way that they meet life and death.”
It is an astonishing statement. Everything surrounding her appeared to deny the reality of God. The machinery of death was operating efficiently. Human beings were being reduced to numbers, loaded into railway cars, and transported toward extermination. The heavens seemed silent. Nevertheless, Etty Hillesum—at first sight an unlikely candidate for such a dignity—determined that she would take responsibility for God. She would attempt to make God believable by the manner in which she lived and, finally, by the manner in which she died.
She understood something the Church has sometimes forgotten: witnesses establish the truth by giving evidence. It really is as simple, and as demanding, as that.
When we celebrate the saints, we celebrate those who have given evidence. We remember men and women who have made God believable by the way they encountered the circumstances of their lives and deaths. Some were martyrs whose blood became the seed of the Church. Others lived long and outwardly uneventful lives of prayer, mercy, faithfulness, and service. Some preached to multitudes; others taught children, tended the sick, fed the hungry, welcomed strangers, or remained faithful in obscurity. What unites them is not temperament, achievement, or ecclesiastical office. It is their transparency to Christ. Through them, something of Jesus could be seen and touched.
The saints recognise that arguments will finally not win the day. This does not mean that theology is unimportant or that the life of the mind is irrelevant. The Church must think carefully, speak truthfully, and give an account of the hope that is within her. Nevertheless, God does not make himself credible by argument alone. God does not respond to our doubts, intellectual questions, and uncertainties by delivering from heaven a neatly annotated catalogue of logical propositions with which we cannot disagree.
God deals with us through a life and a death: the life and death of Jesus Christ.
In Jesus, the invisible God becomes visible. God does not merely tell us that he loves us; he embodies that love. Christ touches the unclean, welcomes the rejected, forgives the sinner, confronts the powerful, washes the feet of his disciples, and stretches out his arms upon the Cross. The Resurrection is not the cancellation of that life and death, but God’s vindication of them. This is what divine love looks like. This is who God is.
God continues to deal with the world through lives and deaths that make Christ credible—lives through which Jesus becomes tangible here and now. Making Christ tangible for their generation, and for ours, is what the saints do. Francis embraces the leper. Maximilian Kolbe takes the place of another prisoner. Dietrich Bonhoeffer returns to Germany. Oscar Romero stands at the altar. Etty Hillesum boards the train. Each, in a particular time and place, offers evidence that God is real.
The celebration of the saints, therefore, cannot be an exercise in religious nostalgia. Their statues, icons, and feast days are not intended to place them at a safe distance from us. They are witnesses, and their witness places a claim upon our lives. They remind us that every Christian is called to make Christ tangible—to behave, in Hillesum’s words, as if God were real.
Our world does not need more abstract assurances that God exists. It needs evidence. It needs lives marked by courage, mercy, truth, forgiveness, and costly love. Someone must take responsibility for God in this situation. Someone must make God credible.
That someone, by grace, must be us.
Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD
Well Said, thank you for taking the time to share.
I wrote an article last week that touches on this subject; https://www.neuroemergenttherapy.org/post/the-cry-for-meaning-why-your-pain-matters-to-a-world-you-haven-t-met-yet
I’m just beginning to fully understand the realities you speak of, Duane.
People judge God by their circumstances and by how other people treat them…especially people who claim to know Christ.
Wounds delivered by those who claim Christ heal very slowly, if at all.
By the same token, Christians acting like Jesus are undeniably attractive in the spirit…
I spent some time with an agnostic last week and had to say “not all of us think that way” too many times…
Michael,
Yes. Wounds inflicted by Christians can make the name of Christ difficult to hear, and we should never ask those who carry them to pretend otherwise. Saying “not all of us think that way” may be necessary (I know it has been for me as well) but I suspect what matters most is what your agnostic friend encountered in you: someone willing to listen, to acknowledge the harm, and to remain present. That is how we begin to make Christ credible.
We’re studying Romans (in Spanish) in the online Bible study I lead. We looked at Chapter 1 tonight, and the big picture for me is how God changed a determined enemy of the Gospel into its biggest promoter. Paul was not a nice person, but the Gospel truly changed him. If we let the Gospel change us, our example will also change others (and, I know it isn’t easy…).
Duane , thank you very much for these reminders …..reminding us whom we are to represent .
“Wounds delivered by those who claim Christ heal very slowly, if at all”.
One of my family members and a close friend have both rejected God based on the behaviour of Christians . Both were raised in the church , both were treated badly, with strict expectations and being forced into a mold. Mercy and grace were just words in songs. Neither want to hear anything about God anymore .
It’s pretty much impossible to impart to them that the God that was taught to them was sorely misrepresented …
Sometimes I think we only get one chance …..
Owen
Thank you. I understand why you sometimes think we are given only one chance. A harsh or distorted presentation of God, especially in childhood, can leave wounds that no argument will heal. When mercy and grace exist only in hymns, while fear and control govern daily life, people naturally conclude that the words themselves are empty.
Perhaps all we can do now is love them without pressure, listen without defending the Church, and refuse to demand that they return to the place where they were wounded. We cannot argue them back to God. We can, however, quietly bear witness to the God who was so grievously misrepresented to them. It may take years before they can distinguish Christ from those who harmed them in his name. Until then, love must be patient enough to wait.
Wise words , Duane , ty…
I could never encourage anyone to return to where the hurt occurred ….
I’m just trying to find “safe” words to convey that the hurt did not originate with God.
Yes, patience and love ……