Morgan Freeman interviews Tulku Lobsang Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who appears in “The Story of God” series, discussing Buddhist views on the divine. (National Geographic photo in Variety).
It’s Sunday morning. I’m looking out the window at snowflakes falling sideways, trying to rest my eyes and brain from screen time on research about God. The inspiration for the topic arose from a recent edition of Lauren Jackson’s “Believing” newsletter in the New York Times.
Under the title, “God As Black,” Jackson wrote: “Kwanzaa is a weeklong holiday honoring African American heritage, observed by people across religions. It was conceived during the Black Power movement in the 1960s as a shared holiday that would give people a way to express independence from white cultural norms. This week, in honor of that history, we’re looking at churches that have depicted God as Black.”
If that wasn’t enough, I had just watched several episodes of National Geographic’s rebroadcasts of “The Story of God with Morgan Freeman.” If you were ever to envision God as Black, it would be Morgan Freeman, the voice, mostly.
The NatGeo website states: “Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman explores the meaning of life, God, and many big questions in between in an effort to understand how religion has evolved and shaped society. A different divine subject is covered in each hourlong episode, titles of which include “Creation,” “The Devil Inside,” “Afterlife,” “Apocalypse,” and “Who Is God?”
“In some places I found answers, and others led to more questions,” Freeman says. “The constant through it all is that we’re all looking to be part of something bigger than us. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we certainly are.” Another example in popular culture comes from the success (200 to 280 million viewers globally) of “The Chosen,” the streaming series about Jesus and disciples. This is one side of a great paradox.
Spiritual interest
As polls, pundits, and scholars suggest a growing appeal of spirituality, at the same time we are being told that overall church attendance is dropping. “Religious leaders say they’re observing a hidden trend among younger Americans,” states a Dec. 9 headline in the Washington Post. “Religious affiliation has been dropping among young people for decades, but examples abound of surging interest on college campuses and in cities like D.C.” Considering the world they are inheriting, that is understandable.
I hope that the renewed interest is for the right reasons. Medieval crusades and violence seeking earthly power in the name of religion, or ‘converting’ others to one’s ‘true religion’ throughout history have only given it a bad name. We are seeing that again with “Christian nationalism” attempting to control the U.S. government. It is troubling to see this movement entrenched in some charismatic ‘mega’ churches.
If religion encompasses humankind’s efforts to reach out to God, being receptive to spirituality may be God’s way of reaching out to us at a personal level. About his book, God – A Human History, Iranian American scholar and TV host Reza Aslan, says “It is we who have fashioned God in our image, not the other way around.” In the book he writes, “We are, to put it simply, born believers. Whether we remain believers is nothing more or less than a choice.”
Beyond All That Matters
Aslan’s book is one of several that I read as research about the theme of my fourth novel, Beyond All That Matters. Intrigued by the nexus of religion and science, physics and metaphysics, faith and facts, along with a curiosity about quantum physics, I attempted to use that tension to build the story. Some background about this appears in my Dec. 11, 2024 post, “Religious literature a vast resource about human condition.”
The main character in the novel is a middle-aged engineer with a state highway department. Single, self-sufficient, empirical, his social circle outside of work revolves mostly around a passion for fitness sports. He spends little time worrying about the ‘big questions’ in life. His intelligence for the sciences contrasts with a degree of myopia about human relationships and subjective matters.
An awareness of the big questions begins to surface when he begins to receive text messages from a good friend from years ago, who, he learns later, has died. The friend “from beyond” leads him on a journey across South Dakota, where he encounters the friend’s family, their faith, and also Indigenous spirituality. Somehow the friend, who in life appreciated learning about quantum physics, had achieved some synthesis of faith and science, and more so from “beyond.”
The book list included: A History of God, by Karen Armstrong; Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, by Michael Epperson; Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity, by John Polkinghorne; The Language of God – A scientist presents evidence for belief, by Francis S. Collins; Quantum Leap, How John Polkinghorne found God in science and religion, by Dean Nelson and Karl Giberson; and God Is Red – A Native View of Religion, by Vine DeLoria, Jr. In his book, The Courage To Be, Paul Tillich proposes a “God above God,” the ultimate divine being. (See my Jan. 22, 2025 post). Reading the books helped but came nowhere near the level of genuine scholarship.
Christian rationalism
It might be better for everyone if we tried to offset Christian nationalism with some Christian rationalism. While the latter may be seen by some as heretical, in my understanding it attempts to understand faith and metaphysics in the context of the physical, ‘scientific’ world. DeLoria seems to do that in God Is Red: “The principles used by Indian tribal religions have tremendous parallels with contemporary scientific experiments.”
Bible Hub, which appears to be a privately funded, evangelical resource in Pennsylvania, says “Christian Rationalism is a perspective that emphasizes the use of reason within the framework of a divinely revealed truth. It maintains that logical thought is not contrary to faith but is a God-given tool for understanding the truths presented in Scripture… (it) finds its grounding in the biblical call to love God ‘with all your mind’,” as well as your heart.
It should be noted that many Indigenous people converted to Christianity, yet we can appreciate their deeper relationship and understanding of the natural world, which God created, and if you consider North Whitehead’s process theology, continues to create. The more that humankind pursues science, the more we learn about it.
Throughout the year I try to attend about half of the services at a small, rural ELCA Lutheran church. While attendance has declined over the years, the congregation remains active with good demographics. Were it not for the snowstorm that Sunday I probably would have attended the service. It would have been much easier to sit among the parishioners, recite the liturgy and apostles’ creed, listen to a sermon, share the peace, and receive communion, than to try write this.
