Distributed Mind

From an article by one David Fairchild on Victorians and religion:

With that said, many attempted to use the name of God, the words of God, and the institutions that attach their identity to God, as a way and means by which their social ethics could have some legitimacy. I am convinced that this alone may have been the ultimate demise of Victorian ideology in all of its forms. Any time we attempt to use God and control people to promote our position, our name, or our lifestyle, we may as well dance around a golden calf and call it god, and we should expect the God of Scripture to give us the same response He gave those fools in the days of Moses. God was not and is not to be used as a spokesman to our movements, our politics, or our social status, because God is never to be used- period!

I have to wonder how often I try to use God to promote my causes, rather than basing my causes on God. I may have even done so earlier tonight, now that I think about it, when writing about politics. I claimed that I adopted liberal politics because of my faith (true, for the most part), but also observe the rhetoric I use to beat people over the head by claiming certain positions are Biblical, or saying "God cares about X." Indeed, while such statements are not in and of themselves wrong, what could be wrong is how I use them. So if I say such a thing without really thinking it through, or even allowing for the complexity and tenuousness in some extent of such a claim, I am trying to utilize God and his teachings to my own ends at that point. In fact one of my main complaint about some of my political opponents within Chrsitianity and even some of those whome I disagree with theologically is that they make such statements. True, I was not claiming that the problem with those statements was how they used God as a rhetorical device, but rather that they were incorrect, which I did and do believe. But, then, maybe I should have noticed how they used God as a rhetorical device, and how I did likewise. Part of the problem is that trying to understand and practice the precepts of our faith is not always easy. But also a part of the problem, as Fairchild points out, is that God is greater than us (okay, well, Scripture points that out too, I believe) and we can't exploit his name to our ends. So, if you catch me doing it, call me on it.