God Rid Me Of God

Dear God, what happens in and under the name of “God,” I do not know how to pray. One would think I would know how to do this by now, but I am afraid I do not. I am afraid the vocabulary and eloquence to address the Divine eludes me. I am afraid I lack the ability to properly respond to the insistent call of God. So I begin this prayer with the humiliating proclamation that I do not know how to pray.

Dear God, I agree with Jack Caputo and his accomplice Meister Eckhart when I pray that, dear God, rid us of God.

Dear God, rid us of the God of this selfish and entitled religion. Rid us of the God whose omnipotence is so impotent that he falters, flails, and throws an infantile tantrum at the slightest objection or protest to his religion's status quo. Rid us of the God whose followers behave the same way.

Dear God, rid us of the God of Red Cup Christians, so insecure in their faith that they need and demand capitalist corporations to affirm and confirm their beliefs. Rid us of the God that has perverted Jesus' teachings to sell our possessions and give our money to the poor into a right to waste that money on overpriced and superfluous First World extravagances.

God rid us of the God of equal measures, balances and ledgers, retributive justice, and the economics of salvation that stand in opposition of the unconditional impossible that is love, hope, and the gift.

Rid us of the God of the status quo. Rid me of the God that says my characteristics just happen to be normative and anything otherwise is deviant. God rid us of the God that separates and condemns the oppressed, the forsaken, and the lost. Rid me of the God that conveniently hates all the things that I hate.

Rid me of a God that hates me as much and as frequently as he loves me. Rid me of a God that I am terrified of and terrified to love. For what would it say of me to love such a God?

Dear God, rid me of the God that expects perfect prayers, wondrous worship, and exotic exaltation. Rid me of the God that cares if I don't know how to pray. God, rid us of all other Gods and gods that we have set up to take your place, for we find them more agreeable than you and your unconditional, ridiculous, obscene, and stupid love for the other.

Finally, dear God, rid me of the God of intellectual hubris. Rid me of the God that allows me to speak in such accusative, dismissive, and derogatory language. Rid me of the God that makes me certain of my uncertainty and arrogant in my theology.

Dear God, this is my prayer, which I do not know how to pray.

Dear God, rid us of God.

Sucked Up To Heaven

Your father was a good man, which is why he got sucked up to Heaven.

See, 'cause of Dukakis and... and all those people, we're finally living through that Bible thing that predicted this was gonna happen.

- Paper Girls #2

by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang

Episode 0: Podcast Test

Please ignore only a test.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Jesus Fish

So Long, and Thanks for All the Jesus Fish

A Superhero Story in Three Short Parts

I. Origin

Reuben was always an ambitious lad, but his actions always lingered far behind his ideas. With an intelligence that surpassed his means, he always felt betrayed by the society that didn't recognize his genius. This resentment only intensified as his pursuit of employment met with increasing failure.

Too Inquisitive

Even as a child I doubted the concept of a Creator...
...But I knew if he really existed and was really somewhere up there in the heavens looking down...
...And if all this was happening because somehow we were too curious, or too inquisitive...
...Well you know what?...Screw him.

- FBP #20

by Simon Oliver and Alberto Ponticelli

MitchWords 15.4

Sometimes ideas are best contemplated in a narrative.  This is the story of when God visited me on my birthday.  It is a complete work of fiction.  Which means it's completely true.

Graphic Doubt: The Disruption of Faith in Comic Books and Graphic Literature

On April 17th, 2015, I attended the Upper Midwest Regional Conference of the American Academy of Religion.  During this event, I presented the following paper about faith and doubt in comic books.  Essentially, I sat in a room with respectable religious scholars and professors and talked about comic books for twenty minutes or so.

And of course they selected me to go first.  Which wasn't intimidating at all for someone who was pretty much the least educated person in the room.

Anyway, if you've followed Wednesday Theology for the past year or so you will recognize a lot of these themes.  Doubt has, in a way, become my main message, my strongest expression of my faith, and comic books have facilitated that expression and exploration.  So, I hope you enjoy the following.  I hope you appreciate the proper citations.

But why do this?  Why go to the trouble to write such a thing and present it to only a select few?  Well, this is pretty much an example of the culmination of everything Wednesday Theology strives to be: a legitimation, scholarly or otherwise, of the exploration of the intersection of theology and comic books.

Plus, it also gives me a sense of purpose to my life.