"YOUR GOD IS NOT MY GOD"

@ Davao City Cathedral

Jaime E. Masagca

#advocatusdiaboli

#chasinglightschasingdreams

 

"Your God is not my God"... was President Rodrigo Duterte's statement that shocked many, certainly the religious and the faithful.

I was also appalled by such a brazen statement in the President's signature fit of disgust, annoyance, and uncontrolled utterances. Some of the latter's uncouth language may excusably be taken as "bulaklak ng dila" (literally means flower of the tongue), given his ethnic origin. It's the same way that in some parts of Bicol it is common to hear the "f" word in every other spoken sentence.

It was only now that I come to realize what could be the true import of that "offensive" utterances. When I saw someone recently, I remembered an incident when he was arguing with another, where the former shouted: "So your God is ruthless, a God that is unforgiving, quick to punish, and biased. 'That is not my God!". He explained that his concept of God "is someone fair, forgiving, and loving corrects rather than immediately damns". 

I could have said the same thing, or had I when to my discrimination an act of a religious was in a flagrant misapplication of her duty and vows in that habit? 

It now connects with the recent use of the religious for political propaganda to endorse a favored candidate, showing their concept of a God that is political and whose divine will can be swayed or dictated upon their incantations that are weighty with blasphemy and sacrilege. A god with disciples that are filled with anger, hate, and false pride, and think that at all times the Lord's will is theirs?

That kind of god some clerics portray is therefore not the same God that we or I worship. The god of these people is certainly also not our God.