Bishop Desmond Tutu Makes His Choice

by Hassan Nurullah
Clash Daily Guest Contributor

It has long been my contention that there are many who say they believe in God yet precious few who actually believe God. More often than not, the deity people believe in is not God at all but rather a god of their own devising, a god they can feel comfortable identifying with before following.

To those people, I say more power to you, faith in a god of your own imagining is a much more powerful faith than I can muster. I say this because, having accepted the God revealed in the Holy Bible as my God, I know any god of my own conjuration would be as woefully flawed as the character authoring him. No, I prefer a God with a demonstrable track record.

A god subject to my own moral limitations and sense of justice will not do for me, but for many, such a god is just what the doctor ordered. That is, they want a god that removes responsibility from those who worship him, a god that does not demand obedience. Such gods are popular because they allow devotees to determine what is and is not sin for themselves, or if there is such a thing as sin at all.

People who worship their own gods are easy to spot, they always betray themselves. They make statements like: “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven … I mean I would much rather go to the other place,” and “I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this.”

When such words have their origins in a person who served as a Bishop in the Anglican Church, one is forced to recognize there are some who choose the clerical path as occupation rather than spiritual calling. Those who choose the cloth as a means to further a political agenda rather than the gospel of Christ.

When the person making the choice of placing his morality above the God of the Holy Bible’s morality happens to be a Nobel Laureate and beloved freedom fighter, like Desmond Tutu, it strengthens the resolve in the secularist that morality should always remain a subjective or relative matter. This does great harm to the gospel the former Bishop vowed to serve.

Morality not issuing from an immutable source is morality subject to fashion. History is littered with examples of the consequences stemming from man’s mercurial sense of right and wrong, so excuse me if I throw my lot in with the unchanging Source found in the Holy Bible — we may twist His teachings from time to time to suit our selfish ambitions — but that is our failing not His or His revelation.