The Trivialization of God: The Dangerous Illusion of a Manageable Deity

“IT MAY WELL BE THAT THE WORST SIN OF THE CHURCH AT THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY HAS BEEN THE TRIVIALIZATION OF GOD.” The God of the Scriptures is a holy God-wholly other, radically different from anything else in creation, terrifying in greatness, and utterly awesome in love. This is a God who transcends our understanding and is unknowable except by divine revelation-the God described by the author of Hebrews as “a consuming fire.” But the church has reduced this God of glory to more manageable proportions. We have trivialized the God of glory. “Visit an average congregation on a Sunday morning,” proposes Donald McCullough, “and you will likely find a congregation comfortably relating to a deity who fits nicely within precise doctrinal positions, or who lends almighty support to social crusades, or who conforms to individual spiritual experiences. But you will not likely find much awe.” The result is a diminished influence of the church on the world around it-a sad reflection of the manageable deity we have put in God’s place. Donald McCullough calls us to abandon the fleeting comfort of our substitute gods and embrace the God of the a God far more powerful, exciting, loving, and unfathomable than any image of God we can conjure up. Those who know and follow this God are different-a people transformed by a holy God into a holy, worshiping, loving, community that reveals an awesome God to a needy world. “Don McCullough knows the difference betweeen Christ and culture and shows us how to tell the difference. His sharply articulated insights guard us from foolish religion and silly spirituality, both of which are epidemic in our land. A most welcome sane, incisive, prophetic.”-Eugene H. Peterson, professor of spiritual theology at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C. and author of The New Testament with Psalms and Proverbs “Donald McCullough helps us discern our faults and foibles in the community of faith. He names our idolatries with relentless precision. But there is nothing mean-spirited about his attack. With compassion and humor he leads the reader to the mystery, hilarity, and joy at the heart of the Gospel. God’s generosity, humility, and availability to us in Christ is the thread running through the book which enables us to face our failure with the renewed conviction that God hasn’t finished with us yet!”-Alan Jones, dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, California “What J.B. Phillips did for his generation in Your God is Too Small, Donald McCullough has done for our generation. This is a courageous, tough-minded, truth-telling challenge helpful to skeptics, seekers, and saints alike. I strongly recommend it.”-Roberta Hestenes, professor of Christian spirituality, Eastern College, St. Davids, Pennsylvania “McCullough’s compelling new book startled me with its exposure of my sneaky devices for managing my God. It is, I believe, God’s own most urgent word for Christians and churches ‘Let Me be the Lord and Maker that I am.’ This book awakens us to our tricks with a clarity, a concreteness, and a kindness that makes us glad to come to our senses.”-Lewis B. Smedes, senior professor of ethics, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasedena, California “Be careful-reading this book may shake you to your roots as it shook me, crashing in on my facile, comfortable assumptions about Christian faith, and revealing to me the extravagant love of our un-domesticated God. In this profoundly disturbing, cleansing, radically biblical work I found a new lens through which to see Deity and reality.”-Luci Shaw, author of God in the Dark, Writing the River, and writer in residence at Regent College, Vancouver, B.C. “In a lively, vividly illustrated book, Donald McCullough challenges our contemporary idolatries, recalling us to the adventure of Christian worship and praise of the living God.”-William H. Willimon, dean of the chapel, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina “This book speaks to our premier human problem-idolatry and its consequences. Donald McCullough’s deep learning, wide reading, clear thinking, and firm faith combine to expose our folly and show us not just the better but the only way to live-in the worship of the One who is Holy Love.”-David A. Hubbard, president emeritus, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasedena, California “About once every ten years, a book is published that must be added to the genre of prophetic literature. Such is the dynamic power of the Trivialization of God. With the passion of a prophet, Donald McCullough fires words like bullets, piercing our shabby certainties about the nature of God and inviting us to prostrate ourselves in hushed trembling and speechless humility before the God revealed by and in Jesus of Nazareth.”-Brennan Manning, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba’s Child “Don McCullough writes about a God who is real, authentic, and available to us in Jesus Christ. He shows us the way to authentic faith out of the ethos of a tinsel age. This is a must book for anyone who is serious about the journey of faith.”-W. Frank Harrington, senior minister, Peachtree Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia “Don’t be misled by the title. This book isn’t mostly about us and what we have done to God-turning Him into a lot of trivial godlets. It’s really about God-the Holy God, totally Other and totally Love-and what He does to us.”-Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia