PART III - I Don’t Care If You Believe in God.

Really!

Imagine waking up early for a Bible study. You shuffle in, bleary-eyed, coffee in hand. The priest opens the scriptures. You expect the usual: encouragement, reflection, maybe a word to help make sense of your week.

And then says, without warning: “I don’t care if you believe in God.”

The room goes still. No one knows whether to laugh or shift uncomfortably. These are the moments in class when I let the silence linger just a little longer than feels polite—long enough for the discomfort to start doing its work.

I say it with no sarcasm, no irony. I mean it. I don’t care if you believe in God. Really.

I know that’s a strange thing to hear from a priest. But belief in God, by itself, isn’t particularly informative or transformative. Westboro Baptist Church believes in God. This is the group known for protesting the funerals of soldiers and LGBTQ+ people with signs that say things like “God hates fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers.”

So let me ask a better question: What is the character of the God you believe in?

That’s the conversation I want to have. And one of the unofficial tenets of the Episcopal Church in recent years—thanks to our irrepressible Presiding Bishop Michael Curry—is this: “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”

Additionally, I don’t care if you have faith. Al-Qaeda has faith. Faith strong enough to strap bombs to their bodies, walk into crowded marketplaces, and detonate themselves in the name of that faith—killing innocent women and children in the process.

So again, I’ll ask the real question: What’s the content of your faith?

Because when we talk honestly about the character of your God and the content of your faith, we begin to uncover the theological lens through which you see the world. These aren’t abstract ideas. They shape how you vote, how you parent, how you grieve, how you justify cruelty—or resist it.

What you believe about God matters. What you prioritize in scripture matters. The stories you elevate, the commandments you cling to, the verses you quote when pressed—all of that reveals something.

Because when we get to the bottom of these two questions—the character of your God and the content of your faith—we begin to see your theology not just as theory, but as posture. It tells us what kind of neighbor you’ll be. What kind of parent. What kind of citizen. It reveals what you call justice, what you excuse as mercy, what you label truth.

It exposes your theological prejudices—what you defend, what you ignore, and what you’re willing to bless in God’s name.

This isn’t about policing belief. It’s about naming what belief does—how it animates your life. Because if your faith doesn’t lead to love, and if your God doesn’t look like Jesus, then maybe it’s time to start asking different questions.

So let’s talk about content and character.

Let’s talk about the kind of faith that actually forms people—the kind that shapes not just doctrine but desire, not just belief but behavior.

Because if your God is built on a framework that is punitive, transactional, and private, it will inevitably shape how you see the world:

How you assign value to others.

What you consider justice.

Who you think deserves help.

What kind of nation you think God blesses.

I reject this theological framework not only because it’s historically conditioned and scripturally thin—but because it’s spiritually bankrupt. It is not beneficial to those who hold it. And it is not benign in the world it helps build.

It justifies systems of inequality. It hardens hearts against the poor and blinds people to the deep scriptural tradition of justice. It confuses hierarchy for holiness, and retribution for righteousness.

And it shapes the people who proclaim it.

So if your pastor, your priest, your favorite YouTube voice or radio guru comes across as angry, sarcastic, bitter, defensive, smug, condescending, mocking, or cruel—I want to encourage you to ask one simple question:

What is the character of the God they inherited?

Because theology reveals itself. It leaks out. It spills into everything. Sometimes in egregious, obvious ways. Sometimes in more hidden, subtle distortions. But it always shows.

Here is a truth about religion I’ve come to believe:

You slowly become what you worship.

This is why idolatry is such a central concern in Scripture—not because God is insecure, but because false images of God distort everything. They twist our loves. They justify our cruelty. They baptize our worst instincts in divine language.

If someone claims to believe in a God of grace, love, and justice, then why do they sound the way they do?

Why is grace always something they receive—but never something they extend?

Why is their God endlessly patient with their sin—but merciless with others?

It’s revealing. Deeply revealing.

Because in that framework, grace is not a way of life. It’s not a value to emulate.

It’s a reward. A private gift handed down from a sovereign to a sinner—granted, but never shared. This isn’t just a personality problem. It’s a theological problem.

And that’s why it matters.

Because how we speak about God shapes how we live with each other.

What we think God is like determines what we tolerate—how we lead, how we punish, how we forgive, how we love.

And yes, it even shapes how we vote. It influences which leaders we trust, which policies we defend, which systems we uphold—even when they harm others.

When God is imagined as a punishing monarch, a cosmic accountant, or a private benefactor—you get a society that mirrors those same values. You get politics that are merciless. Economics that are extractive. Borders that are defended, but not neighbors.

It defends its own power. It blesses its own violence. It silences prophets and protects kings.

But if you’re troubled by the values of empire—by the cruelty, the inequality, the scapegoating, the hollow religiosity—you are not alone.

And you don’t have to be baptized, born-again, or Bible-thumping to take Jesus seriously.

In fact, the first people who followed him weren’t called Christians at all.

They were Jews and Gentiles—women and men, soldiers and tax collectors, day laborers and outcasts—so compelled by his alternative vision of the world that they were willing to give up everything to pursue it.

They didn’t just believe in Jesus. They followed him. They learned his way. And slowly, they became like their Rabbi. The grace they received, they extended. It shaped every relationship—even with their enemies.

“Love one another as I have loved you,” were, after all, his final words to his disciples.

Thank you for reading. Posts will start being consistently delivered Monday mornings. Next Monday I will be addressing Imperial Scholasticism: Penal, transactional, and privatized.