It's In the Code, Ep. 22: God's Ways Are Not Our Ways
Many have heard Christians claim that “God’s ways are not our ways,” or that “God moves in mysterious ways.” While these words might have been offered as comfort in a trying time, they have had a negative impact on many. In this episode, Dan cracks the code on phrases like these find out why, and to understand the multiple meanings encoded within them.
Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC
Order Brad's book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Axis Mundy Axis Mundy You're listening to an Irreverent Podcast.
Visit irreverent.fm for more content from our amazing lineup of creators.
Hello and welcome to It's In The Code, a series that is part of the podcast Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Dan Miller.
I'm professor of religion and social thought at Landmark College.
I want to thank all of you listening to this for joining me.
As always, we are offered in association with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
Thank them for their support.
I want to thank all of you who support us by listening, those of you who support us financially to help us keep doing what we're doing.
Ask if that's something that you could do and you're not doing that yet, if you might consider doing so.
If you find this useful and informative, this is what allows us to keep doing what it is that we do on the podcast.
And I also want to, before diving in this week, to highlight something we've been plugging on the podcast the last couple weeks, something we're really excited about, is our first Straight White American Jesus live event.
It will be taking place in Denver on November 18th at 7 p.m.
It's called Christian Nationalism and the Future of Democracy.
It will host a lot of friends of the show, people that we read, people that we talk about, people we have interviewed, people like Robert Jones and Catherine Stewart and Samuel Perry and Philip Gorski and Larisha Hawkins and a lot of other people.
Brad and myself will be there together with Sarah Mosliner who will be helping to host Sort of roundtable discussion.
Really excited about bringing people together and having this discussion.
If you say, Denver is not where I live.
How can I get to Denver November 18th?
You don't have to go to Denver on November 18th.
The event will also be live streamed and you can access that as well.
If you're interested in this, you can look at Brad's website.
BradleyOnishi.com slash nationalism has information for the live event.
You can buy in-person tickets.
You can buy virtual tickets.
I really ask that you would consider doing this.
We're very, very excited to bring together in one place so many of the voices we've talked to over time and that have informed what we do, and to reflect sort of together on what we think at that time, immediately after the midterm elections, what we think are sort of some of the takeaways from that and things as they relate to American Christian nationalism, the things we talk about so much.
So again, November 18th, 7 p.m.
Mountain Time, Christian Nationalism and the Future of Democracy.
So ask that you would check that out if you get a chance.
Now let's dive into the topic for this episode, and as always, I want to thank folks who reached out.
You can reach me, Daniel Miller Swaj, DanielMillerSWAJ at gmail.com.
So many, so many great questions from folks, great insights, great topics.
As always, I respond to as many as I can, and I know that that's not everybody, and I apologize for that.
But I wanted to dive into a topic today that I've heard from a good deal from people.
And it's related to some other topics that we talked about, especially the idea that, you know, that God has a plan.
And so, you know, if you're not sure what I'm talking about with that, I want to check that out.
Go back, have a series, or excuse me, an episode in this series on that.
But this is the idea that God's ways are not our ways, or the way other folks have said it and posed it is, you know, God works in mysterious ways.
And we could come up with other formulations of this.
As I say, several people have contacted me about these, formulated in different ways.
So many of you have shared your experiences and reflections about this language, this way of talking, the effects that it has on you.
Again, some of you asked just kind of what is going on with that and why people talk this way.
And so I wanted to tackle that.
And as I say, it relates to the notion that God has a plan, but it's not exactly the same thing.
And I'll touch on on the end, the two kind of hooked together in various ways.
But one of the first things to see with this, as you know, often, you know, in this sort of cracking the code of these different phrases or ideas, it's worth looking at kind of, I guess, the surface meaning
Or the fact, and this has come up a lot of times, that often when people use these phrases, right, when somebody in your life says, God's ways aren't our ways, or God moves in mysterious ways, or you hear a pastor giving that sermon or something, the intention that they have is often Not the same as the effects that it might have on some people.
And that's part of the work of this, you know, what I think of as this kind of code breaking, oftentimes, is that sometimes it's a code that operates and moves and affects people in ways that those repeating it or saying these things may not even intend.
And this is one of those.
Generally speaking, the idea that God's ways are not our ways, or that God moves in mysterious ways, or whatever it is, when I think of this, in my experience hearing this, thinking about it, the way that it operates, the way that it works, is that I think it usually comes from a place what we might call sort of pastoral concern.
In times of tragedy or loss or personal distress, it's intended as a message of comfort and hope.
You're going through something terrible, or you've experienced an awful loss or a trauma, and you're asking the question, why?
What does this mean?
How do I make sense of this?
We're told that, you know, God's ways are not our ways.
It's in that context.
And it is, I think, very often articulated in a context of care.
And it's the idea that when these things happen, it may not feel like God is in control or that God has a plan or whatever, but we can be assured that God does.
It's this notion that God's vision surpasses our own and God's ways are not our ways.
There's a plan and an intention.
And it's orchestrated by an infinite intelligence that surpasses our own finite understanding.
And so even if we don't know what that is, even if we can't see it, even if we're not savvy to what that is, we can know that it's there and it's operative.
And as I've said, for some of the other themes that we've considered in this series, for millions of Christians, this works.
This is exactly how the message works.
They find it comforting.
It is comforting to them to hear that what happens is happening because God has a plan, as we say, but also that it's something that we can't see, but we can rest assured that it's there.
Okay?
But here's where the cracking the code takes place, because many of you who've contacted me, I know from experience, many of the people that I work with in my coaching practice with the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery, many people I talk to, people I hear from, and this is backed up of my own experience, could say that for lots of Christians, for lots of former Christians, for many non-Christians, This simply isn't the case.
It doesn't bring comfort.
In fact, it sort of unravels.
It brings about a kind of unraveling of the assurances that we're often told should be part of the Christian faith.
And so that's what I want to dig into here, is yes, it has a service meaning.
And people usually, when they say it, I think they mean well.
They want to provide comfort.
They want to provide assurance.
And lots of times, for lots of folks, that's exactly how it works.
And I can look at times in my life In a very different time and place, when I experienced significant tragedy, and exactly these words did lend me comfort.
To know that God's ways were not my ways, that there was a meaning and a purpose to what I was experiencing that just surpassed my own understanding, and I was able to rest in that.
But over time, as I say, it sort of unraveled, and I know it does for others, and that's where I want to sort of decode this.
I want to stick with this metaphor of unraveling, I suppose.
I want to pick at that thread and see if we can unspool it a little bit to see what else is going on when people see this, to see why doesn't it lend simply, let's say, faith or comfort to folks?
What else is going on?
And so here's one of the issues that I've always had with this idea that God's ways are not our ways.
And for me, this was really significant, and we talk about it unspooling.
A huge part of my evangelical background was undone by really teasing out what I thought was going on with this phrase.
And so one of the key issues I have, and I think everything in today's episode really hinges around this, is that For the kind of Christianity I came from, certainly, and I think arguably for most forms of Christianity, certainly for conservative Christianity, a key tenet of the Christian faith is exactly that God's ways are supposed to be our ways.
What do I mean by that?
Well, what I mean is that we're told that the entire human condition, the entire human predicament, the problem from which we need to be quote-unquote saved, is precisely that we don't live as God desires us to live.
We are sinful, which is to say exactly that we are not living according to God's ways, and we stand under divine judgment and condemnation for that reason.
Thanks for listening to this free preview of our SWADGE episode.
In order to get access to the full episode and so much more, become a Straight White American Jesus Premium Subscriber by clicking the link in the show notes.
It'll take you like two clicks, I promise.
In addition to getting access to this episode, you'll have access to the entire SWADGE archive, over 550 episodes.
You'll also get an extra episode every month, ad-free listening, Discord access, and so much more.
All that for less than six bucks a month, and it helps us keep our flag up and continue to safeguard democracy from religious nationalism, extremism, and rising authoritarianism.
