There's a God in My Closet-by Ben DeLong...a review

I received an e-copy of the book, There's a God in My Closet, in exchange for an honest review. I have to confess that I have some mixed reactions to this book. I realize that most people speak of mixed emotions, but that isn't the case for me. On an emotional level I found myself sympathetic to DeLong's struggles with a skewed view of God and of himself, struggles which he acknowledges and is courageously confronting. I rejoice with him in newfound insights and see so much about his journey that is hopeful and encouraging.

I do have mixed reactions to the book however, based on the purpose for which a person might be reading.

As a personal memoir, DeLong tells a compelling story about confronting the ways in which past misconceptions about himself and about God colored his self-concept and his marriage. Those misconceptions found themselves intensified as he confronted behaviors that were potentially destructive to him and his relationships. Reading his story as a memoir is a very personal and sometimes emotional journey. As both a person of faith and a pastor, I found myself deeply invested on a personal level in DeLong's struggles both with himself and with his concept of God. It is certainly encouraging to follow the transformation of his personal relationship with God.

I have greater difficulties with DeLong's book in the manner by which he assesses Evangelicalism. As he paints a picture of a vindictive, vengeful God dripping with wrath...the proverbial "monster" in the closet of his imagination...he indicts his Evangelical background for putting this idea in his head. First, his descriptions of the church in which many of his conceptions were birthed seems to be more of a caricature than a complete picture. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of anything he said about his church experience growing up. I remember a number of similar experiences and teachings myself, but they certainly were not the totality of the experience. Just as a caricature lifts out certain physical characteristics of a person and exaggerates them, I sense something similar happening here. Beyond that, I would consider much of what DeLong said about his church experience to be characteristic of Fundamentalism rather than Evangelicalism. I come from an Evangelical tradition and pastor an Evangelical church and the vast majority of the negative concepts of God which DeLong attributes to an Evangelical perspective are foreign to what we believe and teach. Therefore, I would have to say that as a commentary on Evangelicalism I find the book to be seriously lacking in perspective.

Finally, if reading There's a God in My Closet from a theological perspective, I think there are a few problems. I am not sure whether DeLong would consider his book a work on theology, but any time one begins to speak about the nature and character of God one is doing theology. I really believe that DeLong's emphasis on, and description of the love of God is spot on. I do wish there was more emphasis in pulpits of love as the motivation for everything God does, even judgment. His sourcing for this concept of God makes me a little uncomfortable, however. Colossians 1:15 tells us that the Son is the image of the invisible God. As I was reading DeLong's writing, however, I sometimes got the feeling that in his conversation about God he was treating God as the invisible image of the visible Christ. If one is a very strict Trinitarian and holds firmly to Christ's teachings that "I and the Father are one," that shouldn't seem to be a problem. However, especially later in the book, DeLong engages in supposition and borderline psychoanalysis of Jesus, his motivations and reactions. This gives us more of a picture of who DeLong thinks Christ is. This shaping of Christ as we understand him is something we all do. However, if we begin understanding God as a reflection of the image of Christ, we come dangerously close to recreating God in our image rather than allowing him to recreate us in his. That may seem to be a minuscule issue, but I have heard too many people dismissively proclaim God to be okay with any form of immoral behavior because Jesus ate with tax collectors and prostitutes during his earthly ministry. Allowing our ideas to be the grounding for an understanding of the nature of God can be a slippery slope.

I believe we need to have a little more objectivity undergirding our discussion of the nature of God. That leads to the last theological caution I have with regard to There's a God in My Closet. DeLong's approach to Scripture bothers me. While I understand that it is not helpful to have a "flat" view of the interpretation of Scripture, I also understand that if we do not view the entire Bible as inspired and authoritative we can too easily fall into the trap of making ourselves the arbiter of what is inspired and what it not...what is Scripture and what is not. Rather than wrestling with (especially Old Testament) pictures of God that do not fit his paradigm, DeLong too quickly dismisses such challenging parts as a "product of the times." If we understand love to be the center of the Divine nature, we may be tempted to see some of the more harsh writings of the Old Testament as problematic. If, however, we take both the authority of Scripture and the love of God as axiomatic, I believe we can wrestle with those Scriptures and emerge, not just with our understanding of a loving God intact, but with a revolutionary picture of God's extraordinary redemptive plan. For example, although I agree with DeLong's view that the Scriptures teach that God's salvation is not limited by time on this earth, and that the Bible indicates the possibility that repentance and salvation can occur even after physical death, I do think that the existence of an eternal place of punishment and separation from God is an essential part of God's loving nature. If our opportunity to choose to accept God's salvation is eternal, our opportunity to reject it must also be eternal. Otherwise God would not love his creation enough to allow us to choose him.

I would recommend There's a God in My Closet to any mature believer who wants to be inspired by a story about someone's journey away from faith and back to it again. I was inspired by DeLong's story, and it kept me reading on even when I had some theological issues with some of the things that were being said. I commend DeLong for his honesty and transparency as he challenges us to think about the actual sources of our picture of God.