How Our Perception of God Makes it Difficult to Change

What’s challenging about growing as a Christian is how our understanding and perception of who God is can be limited.

Let me explain.

We got handed a belief system. But asking questions and wrestling with those beliefs is kinda frowned upon. Unless you “wrestle” and remain in the same spot, that is.

Our deeply held Christian beliefs are influenced or shaped, in one way or another, by prevailing beliefs from the recent past (recent can be last few decades or centuries), popular authors and pastors, or what those around us believe.

But still, in evangelicalism, the person with the fewest questions is considered the most faithful. Of course, I’m not saying that we’re not entitled to believe whatever we want to believe. Not having questions is somehow not worse than having some questions.

I’m saying that the evangelical concept of the Divine often makes it more challenging to examine our beliefs and change them when they are unhealthy.

At least that’s the case for many evangelical and other conservative faithfuls: There seems to be a way to think about God (diverse, but the baseline is similar) and attempting to break out of that group conditioning places you as outside “the group.” Even if you still consider yourself a Christian.

How Our Perception of God Makes it Difficult to Change: Gender Roles

An example is the belief that men and women are different by Divine design and that they have different roles as a result: Gender roles is a strong theological framework for many and it lines up with how the general culture already operates.

When a Christian begins to get curious and examine what has been passed down to them (such as starting to see God through the lens of Jesus who did not uphold hierarchy and instead modeled equaling of status for all), they become the bad one.

The unfaithful one. The one “saying what their itching ears want to hear.” The one “catering to the culture and masses.” The “Jezebel spirit.” (Not a thing, by the way!)

That type of scapegoating  – and the rigidity – makes it hard for evangelical and other conservative Christians to learn new things. It’s hard to rock the boat when you know, at that felt level, that you are going against the norms and you have much to lose.

It wasn’t meant to be that way. Read More How Church Beliefs Affect Marriage

How Our Perception of God Makes it Difficult to Change: Healthy Spirituality

In my upcoming book, The Newlywed Wife Guide, set to release later this year, I have a chapter dedicated to spirituality: It’s essential to rethink our view of God when what we believe leads to bad outcomes.

The Gospel is “Good News” for a reason. It was never supposed to cause harm or add more burdens. But many evangelical teachers and pastors believe it was and so they create entitlements for one group and compliance lists for the other.

We must do better. But we won’t do better until we become open and curious about what we believe.

My book is titled The Newlywed Wife Guide, but it’s really about building a healthy foundation for marriage, including our faith AND ensuring we’re not taking responsibility for stuff that is not ours! How we see God ultimately shapes how we do marriage.