Good God?

God-Poisoning and God-Images

Kohn, Sonderbo

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781498274920
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Image of GOD we have in our soul has the potential of enhancing our life. This happens when the image of GOD is one of goodness, justice, and encouragement. The opposite is also true. A GOD image can be destructive, inflict guilt, cause insecurity, and foster condemnation of self and others. In a refreshing and life-giving way the two authors, Rosemarie Kohn and Susanne Sonderbo, present a slideshow of insights: Kohn as the Biblical theologian, Sonderbo using developmental psychology. They address how a Toxic Faith can poison and writhe a person's life into absolutism. This happens, they note, when one image of GOD becomes dominant and exclusive of all other images.A section of the book is devoted to an analysis of the homosexuality debate inside and outside the Norwegian church. Using over 1400 letters from the Sunde Case in 1999 they uncover a variety of GOD images: rigid and judgmental, warm and comforting, some based on Scripture and others on a broad range of human experiences hoping in a gentle and loving GOD.Kohn and Sonderbo have through their work met many people with a GOD image causing much hurt and pain. It is the authors' hope that the book will be a helpful tool in reflection on and perhaps reconstruction of the GOD image to which the reader has grown accustomed. They advocate lifelong growth in faith. The book also provides pastors and therapists with a key to understanding. Both authors plead a case for images of GOD that focus on inclusivity, love, and friendship--offering inner strength and hopeful living. They also make a strong case for how our image of GOD is not so much about theology but rather about growth and development in our personal lives. How we imagine GOD says a great deal about how we look at ourselves and others.

1

Godpoisoning

The first time I encountered the word “godpoisoning” was in 1976. I was a young novice then, on my way to the convent school in Münster, Germany. I was outside a bookstore and in the window I saw a display of new books. One was titled “Gottesvergiftung” (Godpoisoning), written by the German psychologist Tilmann Moser. I didn’t get to read the book until 20 years later, but the title made a strong impression on me. It was a provocative title; a linguistic bomb creating havoc in the regular usage of language. Most people would say this is an oxymoron. When the word God—naming the holiest, most sacred—is put together with a negative word poisoning there is a conceptual dissonance. This of course was intentional.

Poisoning is a medicinal term. Poison enters the blood stream and rapidly affects the whole body, not just a part of it. To counteract a poison you administer doses of antidote often over a period of time. It may take a long time to recover from poisoning. This is similar to what happens if you have been given a negative and distorted image of God. It affects your whole life—thoughts and actions—and it takes time to alter your image of God.

Who then are the people suffering from Godpoisoning? Often they are people raised in homes with a single minded Christianity. They have been taught one sided “Bible facts”; that God is to be feared; that God is the judge; that it will be horrible on Judgement Day. These images of God have become entrenched in their young and sensitive minds and further strengthened because they were told by people in positions of trust and authority (parents/clergy/teachers). A distorted image of God arises when a single aspect or attribute of God is overemphasized or absolutized.

Often people assume that their image of God actually is God. What happens then? People become locked into their own (limited) understanding of the nature of God. They do not consider that God may be envisioned in a variety of ways; they simply know what God is like.

Godpoisoning then, is a term used for a religious belief with destructive and disastrous properties. These destructive and disastrous properties are (most often unconsciously) guiding a person’s life—rather than a dynamic faith relationship with God. A belief of this kind is particularly destructive when it is long held and rigid—immune to change and development. While we grow in most aspects of life—socially, emotionally, and intellectually—many remain stagnant spiritually/religiously. Stagnation in a negative image of God can make life very difficult both for the person and for the people who relate to the person.

Moser’s book starts with this sentence: “Dear God. First I have to curse You and scorn You so I can feel relieved.” The book is an autobiographical exposition of the Christian faith. Tilmann Moser directly addresses the God that he grew up with as a child: “You remain in me like a poison in my body and I cannot rid myself of it. You still live in me as self-contempt. I was just a child when You infected me with what is like a disease difficult to cure.”

Moser’s book is the story of a life lived in oppression and self-deprivation, in which God was present as an always watching Big Brother. Moser’s background is a form of Christianity (pietistic Lutheranism) in which both scripture and hymnal texts were interpreted literally; in which a God-relationship every day was a fatal “yes” or “no.” Everything was interpreted in the light of this belief. As a child you had no choice. Doubt or a hesitation to follow through would alienate his status as a member of the family. Moser tells in the book what it was like to live with this kind of belief and about his struggle for liberation. His book is in a way the means by which he does this; still anyone who is familiar with pietistic Christianity would know how widespread this phenomenon is and that this is much more than one man’s story. However it is also a book that confronts the impact of a negative image of God in any religion—particularly what falls under the term “fundamentalism.”

Long after reading the book I kept wondering about Tilmann Moser. How was he doing? And then one day, now in the age of the internet, I found the answer. I made a search for “Gottesvergiftung” and I found an interview with Tilmann Moser in a German newspaper Deutsche Allgemeine Sonntagsblatt 1998. It was in the “Faith & Therapy” column and the headline read: “A Servant of God” continuing with: “From bitter accusations against Christianity to a new spiritual life. Tilmann Moser, psychoanalyst, has found a new image of God.” In the interview he explains that the book he then wrote was a young man’s attempt to examine the early childhood beliefs that had been so strongly ingrained in him. He never recovered a sweet and innocent childhood faith, just got in touch with his longing for it. The anger and frustration he once felt led to anger towards God. In his own words: “My God became even more cruel and strict than what my parents and the Sunday school teacher had taught me. I had my own poison laboratory and it was stocked with anger and despair. In here, where no one else was allowed to enter, I made the image of God even more judgemental and negative.”

Moser managed to alter and expand his image of God. Calling himself “A Servant of God” in terms of his therapeutic work, he is referring to the serendipitous experiences he encounters in solidarity with his clients. He regards this Closeness to God as an antidote against personal and professional arrogance. He also admits to the arrogance he had as he wrote the book in his youth. At the time he thought that his own intellect was sufficient to understand and grasp the nature of God.

For me all this became a great help. With the concept of “Godpoisoning” and further academic research in religious psychology I was well equipped to identify and name that from which many of my religious clients were suffering. Certainly, this was the case during the time I worked as a psychologist and therapist under the auspices of the Danish State Church. Now that I work as a hospital chaplain in Norway the same holds true. Quite often I encounter people who are afraid of dying, because they fear “The Judgement” and “The Punishment” after death. In recent years I have intentionally focused on my own image of God. I have become aware that “Godpoisoning” also applies to me. Interestingly enough this was not laid down in early childhood but in my late youth and early adult life. It was an emphasis on “Sacrificing for God” and “The God who demands your all.” I had to re-examine my understanding of an “Elitist Christianity,” the idea that “the chosen ones” in a “call beyond reproach” were superior to others. “The Narrow Way” is a secluded life in a convent. The committed life of a religious order is a life abstaining from worldly pleasure, including vows of perpetual poverty, obedience and celibacy. This is referred to as “The Evangelical Counsel” as they are rooted in the radical demands Jesus calls the “Narrow Way” in the New Testament. The assertion that you belong to a chosen group of people is instilled in you again and again. “Many are called, but only a few are chosen.” The demands of a religious order are very high. And they precede the lifestyle to which you commit. In reality they require a far greater personal and spiritual maturity than anyone at a young age is capable of having. In my case—dressed in full habit and with a veil—when I stopped and saw Moser’s book in the bookstore, it was a cry from the subconscious me on a bright sunny day of spring.

For me life in the convent gradually became a burden and I had to find a new way of life. This being the case does not preclude the same for others. Neither does it imply that anyone in a religious order is suffering from “Godpoisoning”! However, any (religious) group that adheres to set standards for its members cannot by so doing help exclude those who are different. The monastic life style is an obvious example. Less obvious is a “fundamentalist” Christianity, found in “independent” churches based on the “True Gospel.” It is no coincidence that congregational members from these “Bible-believing” churches often become fiercely vocal and self-assured when others through their studies of Scripture arrive at other point of view than they themselves.

Such fierce and self-assured points of view were clearly intoxicating the debate about same sex partnerships as it was debated in the Church of Norway in the spring of 1999. The Church had its own “Poison Laboratory” and it bubbled over with toxic insults and accusations. The “Biblical” groups particularly disowned the gay and lesbian (Christians) and wanted them excluded from the Church.

James Fowler has done research into religious development along the lines of other developmental psychologists. (Chapter 4 in this book expands on Fowler’s research). Fowler points out that a lot of people in their faith development hold on to a conventional faith that is barred personal reflection and experience. The person has not yet questioned his own beliefs or the institutions of faith from which they originated. Loyalty to institutional belief is the norm. However it is important to grow in understanding and to become aware of ones own image of God. Perhaps one will discover that the image of God is not totally healthy after all. Henri Nouwen priest and author of several popular spiritual books wrote this insight into his own spirituality at age sixty-three shortly before he died. From “The Return of the Prodigal Son”1:

It dawned on me that even my best theological and spiritual formation had not been able to completely free me from a Father God who remained somewhat threatening and somewhat fearsome. All I had learned about the Father’s love had not fully enabled me to let go of an authority above me who had power over me and would use it according to his will. Somehow, God’s love for me was limited by my fear of God’s power, and it seemed wise to keep a careful distance even though the desire for closeness was immense. I know that I share this experience with countless others. I have seen how the fear of becoming subject to God’s revenge and punishment has paralyzed the mental and emotional lives of many people, independently of their age, religion, or life-style. This paralyzing fear of God is one of the great human tragedies.

Just as we develop and grow in the psycho-social realm throughout life, we also owe it to ourselves to pay attention to our faith development. We must use our intellect to critically examine our faith and the faith-propagating authorities/religious institutions. We must push ourselves towards further acceptance and become comfortable with a life of dilemmas, paradoxes and ambiguities. In this way we may one day enter a new era of faith where no one fights against another, but fights for a brother/sister; having a faith that is busy turning into reality the vision of a better humanity for all, without oppressing those who beg to have a different opinion. Becoming the ones who infuse hope and life is indeed a future oriented leap of faith.

S. S.

1. Nouwen Henri J. M., Return of the Prodigal Son, New York: Doubleday, 1992.

2

Image of God

For it is the nature of God to do good for evil. God is our mother as truly as God is our father.

And so in our making, God almighty is our father by nature; and God all wisdom is our mother by nature, along with the love and goodness of the Holy Ghost; and these are all one God, one Lord. Thus we have our being in our Father, God almighty, and in our Mother through mercy we have our reformation and restoration, and our parts are united and all is made perfect man; and by the generosity and gracious gift of the Holy Ghost we are made complete.

We know that our mothers only bring us into the world to suffer and die, but our true mother, Jesus, he who is all love, bears us into joy and eternal life; blessed be he! So he sustains us within himself in love1.

Julian of Norwich wrote these words in the fourteenth century. It dawned on me in the 70s how significant our image of God really is. I worked as a hospital chaplain at the time and feminist theology was breaking through as a new approach to our understanding of God. Feminist theology gave warmth and intimacy to the image of God and it made it possible for us women to build new incarnational identities. Newly ordained and an inexperienced chaplain at Oslo’s General Hospital (Akershus) I was stunned over the number of people struggling with an image of God as The Judge; s...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Multicultural Universalist Spirituality
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Godpoisoning
• Chapter 2: Image of God
• Chapter 3: God-images and God-representation
• Chapter 4: Personality Development and Faith Development
• Chapter 5: The Image of God and the Debate over Same-sex Partnership
• Chapter 6: Destructive Religion
• Chapter 7: “The Exact Imprint of God’s Very Being”—Matthew’s Jesus
• Chapter 8: A Good, Life-giving Image of God
• Bibliography