Can you ask God to leave?

Last updated on: March 11, 2018 at 6:12 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Can you ask God to leave? 2018-03-09T20:06:00-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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We once told our son we were praying while at Disneyland. Our little boy pointed out that God did not have a pass to Disneyland and suggested that as a result, that God could not go to the park. This was charmingly bad theology, because Disney has to the best of my knowledge never even tried to charge God for an pass. Christians believe God is omnipresent, but does this mean there isn’t any place God cannot go?

Hell is one Hell of a God Forsaken Place

Recently, I read a piece, charity forbids me naming the author, that Hell could not be a “without God,” because God is everywhere. This is true. If Hell exists, and best reason suggests it must, then God must sustain its existence or it would cease to be. In that sense of “being there,” God is there. Is God tormenting people in Hell? No.

Hell is what you get if you do not wish to go to Heaven. That it is unpleasant is not God’s fault. Hell is the best it can be given that residents have rejected the Good, Truth, and Beauty. Taken as a whole, Hell is good, because it is the affirmation that our “no” to God is taken seriously. We get what we demand.

The residents of Hell are shielded from God’s presence, because they wished to be. God sustains their choice and allows them the ignorance they crave. They have turned their back on truth and embraced a lie.

You can kick God out of your life, in a sense. No, after all, means no to a moral person and God is good. You get to choose and if you wish God to go away, then God will go. This is not wise. The results in civilizations have not been good, in fact every single example has been dreadful, but everyone gets to try if they wish.

Courts Cannot Kick God Out of Schools, but You Can

The good news is that any free will agent can ask God back into the equation, so few places of Earth are fully God free. Christians should stop arguing that God was kicked out of public schools just because we got rid of a state-sanctioned prayer at the start of the day. My West Virginia public school had prayer at the start of the day and told me to go to the school or synagogue of my choice on Friday. That did no real harm, might have done some good, and the Court was wrong to tell the community they had to stop, but the Court did not kick God out Clendenin Elementary.

No Court had the power.

My eight year old self carried God into that school. I prayed. I talked about God in my papers. I brought my Bible to class because I wished to do so. Most of my teachers, though not all, did the same. Our dress code was “would you wear it to church” and that made sense to us. A decisive majority of millennial students are Christian in a time when nobody thinks that means American. An even greater majority are theists. They say “yes” to God as well. God is wherever God is asked.

School shootings do not happen, therefore, because God is kicked out of government schools. They happen, because in the evil hearts of some people God or the moral goodness that God created is gone. An atheist can be morally good. While there is no goodness without God, one need not know the source (or even believe in the source) to get the benefit! Christians should stop claiming God was kicked out government schools. We should work harder to bring God and God’s love into our own love and reach out to those who are hurting.

Sadly, we can close our minds to the Good. We can refuse to think or embrace hate. We can stop disagreeing agreeably and choose violence. God will let us say “no.” A better idea is to turn to the Mind that contains all that is Good, True, and Beautiful and like Mary say “yes” to God.

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