Downwardly Mobile

What the sociologists label Moral Therapeutic Deism, the Bible calls idolatry. A distant, hands-off God who does nothing, says nothing, calls no new thing into existence is no different than an idol. To believe in a god who does not intervene in our world is to live a life of functional atheism. As the prophet Isaiah exclaims to God in astonishment, “Truly, you are a God who hides himself.” Who hides himself. In other words, even God’s apparent absence is the activity of God. Which means— God is never not intervening in the world. Of course, this should not be news to people who are used to hearing every Sunday, “This is my body, given for you.”