Why Weird?
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When I started the journey of writing my first book, The Weirdness of God, I was hesitant to use the word weird in the title.
I certainly did not think God was weird – or at least that’s what I told myself.
When I first became a Christian, many of my friends thought the denomination and Church I had joined were weird. They thought the miracles God did were quite weird too.
Self-reflectively, I told myself that either God is truly weird, or there is another word for it.
One year, my undergraduate professor at Crandall University, Barry D. Smith, had published a book entitled The Indescribable God: Divine Otherness in Christian Theology and assigned it as a textbook for our Philosophy of Religion class. Within the first few chapters, it became evident that the word I was looking for had plastered the pages of my Bible for years, but I had not noticed.
The word was: holy.
Weird and holy are words that have a lot in common. They both express something that is different or “other” (Lev 10:10, 20:26; Ezek 22:26).
When someone uses the word weird, they tend to mean it in a derogatory or mocking way. When there is prejudice or suspicion against something, we often default to the term weird (Prov 23:33).
But holy is different.
Holy is what we use when we think of something incomprehensible or amazing (Isa 6:3, 28:21).
Weirdness repulses us (Hos 8:12).
Holiness shakes us (Prov 9:10; Rev 15:4).
When you think of the God of the Bible, which word best describes your experience with him?
Does his character and miracles instill a sense of fear and wonder?
Upholding God’s holiness includes believing in his methods – unusual as they are- not our own logic (Num 20:12).
I chose the word weird because I thought it best reflected the nature and purposes of my writing:
1) too often the Church has decided what is weird and what is holy based on their own presuppositions. Thus, part of the aim of this ministry is to find biblical criteria for discerning between these two categories;
2) the word weird is meant to reflect that we do have an incomplete knowledge of God in this world. There are divine mysteries we simply cannot unravel (Deut 29:29). Thus, while we are on this side of eternity, we admit to our human weakness, but always strive to see God’s weirdness as his holiness;
3) the word weird is provocative. It causes people to stop and think and judge and hopefully hear diverse perspectives on how God moves today.
Thus, the meaning of “Weird God” is not that God is truly weird, but that as Christians we start from a place of mystery that can easily turn into weirdness if left unchecked.
This blog is meant to facilitate conversations on topics in the Bible and the Church that are sometimes overlooked, but inform a great deal of what we think about when we talk about God, the Scriptures, Theology, etc.
Most importantly, the focus of this blog is on Jesus Christ. It is not about abstract concepts or apologetics or methods for “defeating” opponents who hold to a different theological position.
Rather, it is about loving holiness and the Holy One.