I was in the shower thinking about Stephen King. He used to be one of my favorites, a reading obsession. Listen: I still highly, highly recommend his book, “On Writing” for writers. But I started reading a collection of his short stories recently, and it was kind of meh, for the most part. It’s me, not him, I think. I’ve changed, I guess. But I cannot take away from his role in my development and love of reading and writing. He taught me so many words, because I always had to have a dictionary handy in order to get the full view of his stories.
What he added most to me is the understanding of what it means to be a writer – what it looks like. Being a writer, he taught me, is like a lot of practices: It can be as simple or complicated as the person doing it. It’s a journey, and a journeyman chooses when he’s finished with the work. Along the way, he picks up tools and wisdom and style.
But pertinent to this particular post, is a view of God I’ve picked up by reading Stephen King’s work. It’s not ignorant of God, but there is a slant that I would call negative and atheist in nature. Proatheist may be more accurate as a description.
Anyway, during my thinking time in that shower, I tried to take the puzzle pieces of what I was picking up and cobble together the creed – the tenets of the Proatheist View of Christianity as best I could gather and outline them.
Atheist Victim Mentality
The devil and demons exist, but God does not. Or, He is indifferent, judge-y, and/or changeable. Evil and “good” (fortune) are random – like drive-by attacks that may hit “bad people” as easily as “the innocent.” 👆🏾This thinking justifies/makes logical the popular YOLO/Live for Today cultural perspectives: If, no matter what, “blameless” people are at the whims of fated drive-by’s and demons, without God to care (even if He exists to see); why wouldn’t a person be a little meaner? More selfish? Intentionally resistant to limits/restraint – moral or otherwise? Survival of the Fittest and Me First makes sense, right. Go for yours!
☝🏾 But, humans are not blameless regarding the state of our world, this earth. We have made and continue to make choices – to sin. And the heart of all sin or, I could say, the rotten core of it is: Disobedience to and rejection of the truth and identity of God.
He loved and loves us, because He is God. And He isn’t a liar, to be doubted and denied.
21But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. 29Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.
Romans 3 (New American Standard Bible). We all know or sense that this world is broken. But it isn’t an unfair viral attack perpetrated against “good” and “bad” people, randomly; it’s the result of free will – a consequence of the worst choice. But there is a cure by the grace of God, who not only exists, but cares – deeply.
Faith in Jesus Christ saves us – justifies us and makes us righteous, bringing us into God and Him into us.