In the Irreverent Epiphanies blog, which is authored by two San Francisco Bay Area Episcopal priests, comes another reaction to Bart Ehrman's interview with Terry Gross. In response to Ehrman's conclusions, the writer asks the question, "Is God all powerful, or all good? Because logically God couldn't be both." Here is the answer that the writer gives:
I simply don't believe God is all powerful in the traditional sense. I don't believe God controls things like natural disasters or individual fates. Nor do I believe that God allows evil, in the letting-Satan-test-Job sense. I believe about God's power what is described in the New Zealand Prayer book's translation of the Lord's Prayer: God is the one that reigns in the power that is love.
That is the kind of power God has. God's power is the power to invite each one of us, in each moment, into personal transformation and into actions that transform the world into God's kingdom. In this view, prayer is the cultivation of a mindfulness that allows us to see that invitation and to take it-- to be transformed and transforming-- Christ's hands in the world-- the human-power behind God's power of love. I suppose that means in the kingdom of God, there will still be tsunamis, but not lynchings. Shit still happens, but how we react is different. I have evolved this way of thinking by reading process theologian like Marjorie Suchocki.
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