The G Word

Earlier in the week when Barack Obama was announced as President Elect there was a great sense of jubilation among many of the people on my Twitter feed, Americans and non-Americans alike. However as the night progressed the mood soured somewhat when it became apparent that Proposition 8 – the Proposition to over turn an earlier ruling to permit same sex marriage in specific states – had not been defeated.

Writing for The San Francisco Chronicle, Mark Morford suggests the result might be directly attributable to God:

Who stabbed marriage equality to death, again? The Mormon Church. Catholic groups. Evangelicals. Militant fundamentalists. Reclusive, sickly, notoriously right-wing billionaires like Howard Ahmanson, a guy who also funded a radical Christian theologian madman who himself endorses stoning gay people to death. The mother of Eric Prince, CEO of the notorious Blackwater thugs-for-hire company.

Behind it all, it’s God. No, not the god you and I understand as a universal, non-gendered, asexual, love-drunk energy coursing through all things at all times everywhere without the slightest wisp of prejudice or geographical preference, but that famously small, myopic version, the one that encourages a literalist interpretation of very carefully selected Bible verse (to the complete disregard of myriad others) — a version that, in short, has been drilled into the consciousness of far too many voters for far too long.

This brings us to an interesting concept in modern religion, a concept which has been dubbed “The Oprah God.” Proponents of the idea maintain that actually anyone who thinks God is a nice, loving, forgiving, benevolent kind of guy might need to refamiliarise themselves with the bible – particularly the old testament with its fire and brimstone rhetoric. (Oprah is actually a popular scapegoat in religious circles for a litany of other sins too. Most notably promoting ‘new age’ concepts like The Secret and Eckhart Tolle’s New Earth.)

Wait, I have a confession… where is Father Bob when you need him? I searched pages and pages of Google results for a vaguely interesting or coherent discussion of the Oprah God and couldn’t find one. Sure there were obvious religious conspiracy theories – all of which are probably best encapsulated in this one source. However for the most part it became apparent that these were people who just didn’t like the woman and would take exception with everything she did and said whether it had religious overtones or not. There was little in the way of explanation or discussion of what God, the real [non-Oprah] God, was actually like; just a general sense of “How dare this woman open her mouth?”

What is your ‘God concept’? How did you come to think of it in the way you do today? How much do religious texts factor into your concept? How much of it is entrenched in your daily life?

One thing I personally wonder is… Were we created in God’s image, or did we create God in our own? How literally does the creator (should one even exist) represent us? Certainly we all look slightly different from each other. I can’t imagine what an entity with that many faces would look like. So if there is even an element of truth in the notion, it must be something else shared – not just between us and ‘him’, but between all of us. Homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. Jews, Muslims, Christians, Mormons, Scientologists.

The Oprah God people have interrupted me at this junction to assure me that this is far too inclusive and ‘nice.’ They insist – much like Betty Bowers did in last week’s entry – that God does play favourites; and that just because he created you doesn’t mean he’ll like you.

Does this mean America will soon find itself with a President who is more progressive than their deity? The mind boggles…

Happy Sunday!

Tagged as: Oprah Winfrey, Sensational Sabbath