Those of us with evangelical/fundamentalist backgrounds are doomed to a lifetime spent trying to re-imagine the divine. In case you didn't read my post Jesus and the Monkey Blood, a little background is in order.
In 1954 my parents Francis and Edith Schaeffer founded the evangelical mission and commune of L'abri in Switzerland. That is where I grew up. We were isolated from "the world." L'abri was an English-speaking American mission in a small French-speaking village. Students came to crash for a few days to a few months to listen to my parents talk about God, Reformed theology and the biblical answers to everything. We spent our days sizing up and judging people's spiritual condition. This or that person was either "open to the things of the Lord" or "closed to the things of the Lord." Our lives were a non-stop struggle to save "the lost."
Mom would report that she had just talked to this or that person and that they showed a "real interest." That was better than when she would report that she had tried to "share the Gospel" but that the person in question had "shown no interest."
Then there were those who were "openly hostile to the Lord's work..." We would shudder for them, say for Lynette's mother.
Lynette was "truly seeking" and "really open" and about to accept Jesus. Then her Jewish mother found out after Lynette called home "on fire for the Lord." Her mother, this "dreadfully secular Jew," (Mom's words) just about came down the phone line in an effort to stop Lynette's conversion.
But Lynette became one of those great salvation stories, a "true testimonial to the power of God" because Lynette---who was a ballet dancer with the London Ballet---danced before the Lord as a thank you to Jesus. Actually she danced before us on the terrace in front of the chalet, the place we had hot dog roasts every Saturday night in summertime and where people got to ask their spiritual questions and my Dad got to prove to them that there was no honest question that Reformed theology didn't have an answer to.
Lynette danced in the moonlight while we all stood on the second floor balcony and watched. She danced to Stravinsky's Firebird. This was right after Lynette announced that now that she had accepted Jesus she was feeling "led" to leave ballet and to go into "fulltime Christian work."
"I'll never dance again," said Lynette when--with her feet bloodied by the piece-stone that covered the little flat space in front of our chalet--she stopped twirling and leaping in the moonlight. "My life is the Lord's now."
When people converted they often gave up their "worldly pursuits"---especially when it came to "dubious things" like being a dancer, singer, or movie maker, let alone a night club performer---for the Lord. We liked it when smart people came to believe what we told them. And the more they gave up for the Lord the better we liked it. Often they were "led" by being prayed at.
Prayer was a sneaky teaching method, as in, "Lord please show Lynette what You would have her do." Translation: "She isn't doing Your will now and needs new leading."
A "mighty prayer warrior" like my mom seemed to relish using prayer as a way of teaching but also letting everyone privileged enough to overhear her talking to God know just how wonderfully close she was to the Lord. Moreover prayer was a way to tell God to behave, to stick with being the God we said he was and a way to remind God of his "many promises" so he wouldn't do anything theologically wrong.
When I was a child Mom's long flowery talks to God seemed odd. When I grew older and began to travel with my parents on their many speaking tours I discovered that this was how almost all evangelicals prayed, especially a legion of pious women working night and day to keep God and the other men in their lives in line.
Mom would spend a lot of time telling God things he must have already known: "Dear Heavenly Father we thank Thee for being Thyself, for creating us, for sending your Son to die..." At other times she would use prayer to keep my dad humble, say after they had been arguing. "We just pray that You will speak to Fran and help him trust You." Translation: "Make my husband as spiritual as me."
As I said: Those of us with evangelical/fundamentalist backgrounds are doomed to a lifetime spent re-imagine the divine... So it is no accident that God is a character in my new novel Baby Jack and that we find he's pissed off with evangelical Christians. In fact he dislikes all "true believers" be they Christians, Muslims or Jews something he makes clear when God calls Jerusalem, "the stupidest place on earth."
Given the "collision of civilizations" wars-of-religion raging all over the world I think God is right to dislike religion. Rather I think I have a point. Though according to the Reformed Calvinist view "my" point, as made in Baby Jack, is really God's point, since everything is predestined and we have no free will. So he actually wrote my book not me. But I'll bet God, like me, wishes that Lynette had stuck with ballet.