I just read this article that made me start thinking about
prayer and talking to God. http://www.npr.org/2012/03/26/149394987/when-god-talks-back-to-the-evangelical-community
Just to summarize, T.M. Luhrmann is an anthropologist
who recently spent time observing evangelical church services. By observing and
talking to congregation members she observed that they see prayer as a
conversation with God in which they talk to God and God literally talks back. I
thought this was very interesting. I was raised Catholic, and taught that
prayer and a relationship with God are very important. I’ve always felt that
prayer does involve talking to God in a personal way, not just reciting
memorized Our Father’s. I’ve also been told that God will answer prayers.
However, I have never expected to literally hear the voice of God speaking to me,
telling me what to do. Honestly, if I did hear the voice of God, I might assume
I was going crazy.
This is not to say that I think the people Luhrmann talked
to in her studies are crazy, and I think the explanations she offers in this
interview are very interesting. I suppose it isn’t really possible to know for
certain if these people actually hear God. However, I think the fact that they
have this very real experience that they perceive as God speaking to them can
have interesting implications that can relate to morality and moral decisions.
I am definitely skeptical of these claims. I tend to believe
that God works in more subtle ways than a voice in my head. I propose that what
people perceive as the voice of God is actually the voice of their conscience.
This has big moral implications, especially if the person has a malformed or
misinformed conscience. Suppose they heard what they perceive as the voice of
God telling them to do morally incorrect things. People do immoral things all
the time, but when someone claims the voice of God told them to do something, a
whole new level of controversy arises.
This somewhat relates to people using religion to justify
their immoral actions. There are obvious examples of this everywhere. One that
immediately comes to mind is the Westboro Baptist Church which justifies messages
of hate with Bible passages. On a similar note, a good example of a malformed
conscience can be seen in this article about a man who drove his car into a
women’s health clinic that he (incorrectly) believed performs abortions (this
happened in my hometown).
Now, hypothetically let’s say that the man who drove his car
into the clinic claims to have heard the voice of God telling him to do this.
Already, just by thinking it could be morally justifiable to drive his car into
the clinic he would be perceived by many people as a religious fanatic. However,
suppose the clinic actually was an abortion clinic. Personally, I still call
him a religious fanatic, but I don’t think I would be going out on a limb to
say that plenty of people out there might privately (or publicly) support his
decision. After all, by destroying the abortion clinic didn’t he save thousands
of innocent lives? Of course, true Christian morality says that the ends can’t
justify the means, so he is still in the wrong here. Now, let me go back and
restate the Hypothetical situation: The man drives his car into an abortion clinic,
killing and injuring several of those inside and of course, causing at least
thousands of dollars of damage. When it’s all done and he has been arrested, he
claims that God told him to do this.
Some people definitely say he is a crazy,
dangerous religious fanatic. Some people will say what he did was not right,
but maybe they won’t judge him as harshly because it was an abortion clinic. And I don’t know, maybe some people actually
believe that God told him to do it and he is absolutely right in his actions.
Obviously, this situation is an extreme. However, I think
the discussion is worthwhile. How does the “voice of God claim" affect the way
a person’s actions are perceived, whether they are immoral or not? Is it
actually possible that God does reveal things to people by speaking to them?
Certainly this expression is used a lot in the Bible. God spoke to Abraham. God
spoke to Moses. God revealed himself to the apostle Paul. Are these Biblical
accounts are meant to be taken as literal or interpreted as someone coming to
an understanding of the truth of God? How does God “speak” to faithful people
in the world today?
