Jesus is a super hero?

An article written by me, recently published in the Carrs Lane church magazine.....

A few weeks ago, during Sunday morning worship at Carrs Lane we sang a new hymn. It was an action song, as we sang about Jesus having the characteristics of various super-heroes we were encouraged to display the appropriate action for that super-hero. As a song it was perhaps simply a bit of fun.

And yet it got me thinking. There is a strong tendency within present-day Christianity to look upon God as if he were a superhero. Much of our prayer is formulated around our belief that an all-powerful God is present to us and is able to grant our requests. We often imagine God in the position of a benevolent king or of a just ruler. We imagine a God who is set apart from our reality, looking down on us from above. This God, like a super-hero, is able to fly in to help us, or to grant us super-natural favours.

If we believe in this image of God, then this belief will inevitably be reflected in our worship and in our practise. We will develop forms of worship which are about offering business deals to God; we will attempt to exchange worship and praise for help and assistance. If we believe in a super-hero God then this will be lived out in our models of leadership; we have pushed God away from our reality into a faraway heaven, and so we will push our leaders away, onto an elevated pedestal, we will emphasise their superiority, their difference from ourselves, their set-apart-ness. In the act of pushing both God and our leaders onto a pedestal we infantilise ourselves, pushing away our own importance and agency.

When I look at the British Church of 2014 I see this ‘Jesus is a super-hero’ theology all around. Such theology has the potential to be very dangerous. How can such a theology deal with human failure? Or with human pain? How can we understand an all-powerful God who chooses not to heal our friend’s illness? Who chooses not to prevent deadly earthquakes and typhoons? This image of God can draw us towards an unhealthy relationship, God is our master and we are slave, this super-hero God is someone we must obey, not a person we can get to know.

At the beginning of the bible we meet a very primitive understanding of God who gives us the impression that he is a super-hero. Then gradually, as we read on, the bible takes us on a long journey of incarnation. The all-powerful image is slowly unmasked, humanity comes to see that God is weaker and more vulnerable than we could have imagined. This God is not a shouter but a whisperer. God is not sat on a heavenly throne directing Kings and Generals, no; he is whispering love into the souls of the excluded, the hungry and the exploited. In the Gospels we meet a God who is not a super-hero, he is human, just like us; he is exposed to the same weakness, temptation and fragility as are we. This God approaches us from below, offering to wash our feet, inviting us into a relationship of love and friendship, not servility and domination. Each of us is invited into friendship, we are invited to follow.

A Church which worships the ‘super-hero’ God will always remain at a distance from those it is called to serve. It will give to others only out of its surplus. Just as the ‘super-hero’ God lives in heavenly comfort so will we. We will emulate the one we worship, and think of ourselves as generous while doing so!

A Church which attempts to follow the ‘incarnated’ God knows that it has received all it has as gift; that which has been received is there to be given in turn. This Church will know that it is no different from those it is called to serve.  Just as God gets down and washes our feet, so it too will get down on its hands and knees to wash the feet of others. Just as God became like a slave; so as it will humble itself to be alongside those who are excluded and exploited by our society. This Church will give generously, not from its surplus, but rather from the very best of what it has, because it knows that everything it has is gift.

Worshipping the ‘super-hero’ God seems attractive because very little is asked of us, while it seems to offer so much. In truth, I believe, such worship only offers us an illusion. It is in following the ‘incarnated’ God that we are enabled to enter the heart of God; it is only there that we will find the inclination to give deeply of ourselves and to discover fullness of life.