Does God Hate Our Worship?

Last updated on: January 16, 2016 at 12:01 pm by Fredrick Robinson

Does God Hate Our Worship? 2016-01-16T12:01:52-05:00 Fredrick Robinson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Richard Rohr said two things that are worth repeating: “Many American congregations [are] in effect paying their ministers to protect them from the real God” and that “religion is one of the safest places to hide from God.”

Could it be that in much of our singing, shouting, revivaling, dancing, and praising we are really hiding from the real God? Could it be that the god we seek in worship is NOT the God of the Bible, but one we have created and fashioned out of our own vanities and desires?

A god who blesses us without requiring anything from us; who grants us friendship without followship; who loves us even as we hate our neighbors; who blesses us with prosperity while we crush the poor?

To paraphrase John G. Stackhouse, many evangelicals, lie, cheat, exploit, marginalize, and overlook others in an “already-forgiven bliss with an attitude of ‘I’m-cool-cause-Jesus-loves-me-so-I-don’t-owe-you-a-thing.’”

Ours is a god of our own making: One who is always for us and never against us.

Indeed, in far too many of our churches, worship is more about us than God. More about making us feel safe in the divine presence than shaping and molding us into God’s image of justice, love and mercy.

Instead of challenging us to give up things in our lives that do not look like Christ, our worship seeks to shower God with praise and adoration as if flattery will make God overlook the fact that our churches are more capitalism than social justice, more respectability than Black Lives Matter, and more status quo than liberating change. Our worship doesn’t seek to exalt God, it tries to manage and bend God to our will.

But God is not fooled.

Biblical history teaches us that trying to sway God with empty praise is never fruitful. God told the rebellious nation Israel that the noise of their prayers and the melody of their music would no longer be heard until they learned to love justice. “Away with the noise of your songs!” the prophet warned. “I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream (Amos 5:23,24).”

God always prefers righteousness to ritual. Hear the prophet Isaiah: “Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke (58:6)?”

Of course, worship is desirable, but it is worship that is done in the splendor of holiness as the Psalmist declared (Ps. 96:9). And what is holiness if not the totality of God’s character, which includes love, justice and mercy? Worshiping God in the splendor of holiness means separating ourselves from the worldly inclinations of greed, competition, exploitation and hatred. It is knocking down barriers that curtail love, freedom and human flourishing.

That’s why real worship is always a radical act. In its reach for the divine, worship connects us with the taxonomy of God’s heart—WHO God is and WHAT God desires. Since injustice offends God, the subject of our worship, injustice and anything that looks like it must be rejected. We cannot genuinely connect with Christ and continue to overlook our heart’s complicity with suffering and oppression. The effect of God’s presence is always to transform our thinking, attitudes and behavior.

In this way, worship is not an escape strategy, a flight from reality or a means of spiritualizing suffering out of history. Genuine worship helps us sit in the tension of life with all of its ugliness, oppression and pain and, in turn, lights our imagination about ways to bring about healing, wholeness and social renewal.

Sojourners founder Jim Wallis said it best: “Spiritual activity doesn’t get to be called revival until it changes something in society.” You’ve have not been revived if you don’t have a bigger heart for mercy, a greater disdain for injustice and stronger desire fight for those who are suffering the most.

No, radical worship is not just showering God with praise, it is mimicking God’s character on the earth. Anything less is not worship, it’s manipulation.

The Rev. Fredrick D. Robinson is a Baptist preacher and just graduated with a master’s degree in Christian thought at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is also a 2014 Fellow of the Black Theology and Leadership Institute at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ.

Donate to the Work of R3

Like the work we do at Rhetoric Race and Religion? Please consider helping us continue to do this work. All donations are tax-deductible through Gifts of Life Ministries/G’Life Outreach, a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization, and our fiscal sponsor. Any donation helps. Just click here to support our work.

Previous Post

October 12, 2015

Life After Prison: How the Church Can Help

Next Post

October 25, 2015 President Obama and #BlackLivesMatter

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Amy Steele Andre E. Johnson Book Reviews/Series Brian Foulks Call for Chapters Carol Howard Merritt Classes Conferences Contributors Crystal St.Marie Lewis Daniel White Hodge Earle Fisher Eulogy Fredrick Robinson Guest Contributions Henry McNeal Turner Institutes Interviews Joseph Boston Katherine Whitfield Kimberly Peeler-Ringer Lectures/Roundtables Natalie Bullock Brown R3 Book Series R3 Contributor Rashad Grove Readers Reflections Symposiums Teaching Traci Ellis Travis Harris Uncategorized Video

Select a Month June 2020 February 2020 December 2019 November 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 October 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz