Thanks to Patheos, a major religion website, all of the submissions to Tony Jones’ #progGOD challenge have been placed in one spot. And I’m in there! Check it out here. You can find my submission about two-thirds of the way down on the right.

Here is Tony’s announcement of the new webpage.

What is #progGOD?

A short while ago, the good Dr. Tony Jones encouraged progressive bloggers to write about GOD and post them with the hashtag #progGOD. He pointed out that some Christians, particularly conservative evangelicals, seem to have little trouble talking about the nature of GOD, while progressives often speak with great trepidation. He wondered if we could try to make a single, direct statement about GOD in a blog post. Based on the early responses, he reiterated why he started the challenge.

There were several caveats, particularly that we are not to speak about GOD through the lens of Jesus or Scripture. I took this to mean that we don’t speak about GOD by simply reciting what Jesus said or by talking about primarily what Jesus reveals, or what is revealed as Scripture.

This was a challenging and inspiring thing for me, as it gave me an avenue to channel my thoughts, finding different aspects of GOD revealed in different ways. The post I submitted was the explanation post, describing the contest while describing my experience of GOD as merciful.

The second post, and the one I’m most proud of, was about GOD as the Great Storyteller. For me, GOD is revealed, not merely in Scripture, or as Scripture, but in the telling of the ancient stories. Humans are storytellers. And GOD gave us a story to tell.

The third post, called “God Is a Lousy Name” was about names. Precisely GOD’s name. I described how the name is used and worse, not used by us. And I questioned the wisdom of obscuring our relationship to our source and liberator by never using the name (YHWH) or even a placeholder name (GOD or LORD), but the ubiquitous term “God”.

I absolutely loved the experience and am so proud to have participated. It is also an absolute honor to be up there with some truly inspiring bloggers, pastors, and theologians. But the story doesn’t have to, and shouldn’t stop there. Let’s continue to talk about GOD and tell stories. That’s what we were created to do.