The Tyrant We Invented

Beloved,

To the one who still believes in God but no longer knows if they like Him

I do not write to argue with your doubt.

I write to recognize its origin.

You were given a God who tallied sin.

A God who made love feel like a threat.

A God who whispered punishment beneath every promise.

And now, when you hear “God,” you brace instead of breathe.

What you rejected wasn’t the Divine.

It was the idol we made of Him.

Let’s not be romantic.

The Church has, at times, drawn God in the image of empire.

We dressed Him in robes too heavy for a carpenter.

We seated Him on thrones far from the floor where His children crawl.

We made Him sound more like Caesar than Christ.

We turned “repent” into “beg,”

“grace” into “transaction,”

“presence” into “privilege.”

And somewhere in that mess, the face of Christ, the one who touched lepers and wept at graves, was obscured by gold leaf and clenched fists.

I call this out with fire in my bones.

I refuse a God who needs appeasing.

If God is love, then He must begin with freedom. Not fear. Never fear.

So when I hear people say they’ve stopped believing in God,

I ask them, “Tell me about the God you stopped believing in.”

And more often than not,

I find myself saying, “I don’t believe in that God either.”

You were taught to behave, not to belong.

Taught to conform, not to commune.

Your image of God was filtered through voices that needed Him to be controlling,

because control makes religion easier to manage.

But Christ was never manageable.

He shattered purity codes by sharing water with the wrong woman.

He wrecked hierarchies by washing feet.

He spoke more often of lilies than laws.

And when He revealed the fullness of God,

He did it by dying, not ruling.

If your idea of God cannot kneel, cannot break, cannot bleed,

then it is not yet Christian.

Let us speak plainly:

There are versions of God we must leave behind.

Not because we no longer believe,

but because we believe more truly now.

Faith matures like fruit.

And rot comes from holding it too long in a closed hand.

You are not walking away.

You are walking deeper into the parts of God that are not easily quoted,

not easily systematized,

but are always near.

You are right to be repulsed by manipulation disguised as ministry.

By transactional forgiveness.

By a gospel that demands perfection in order to belong.

That is not the God of Christ.

That is the tyrant we invented.

Truly, I tell you, the true scandal of Christianity is not that God is almighty but that He gives it all up.

The omnipotence of God is not in control but in surrender.

The manger was not a strategy.

The Cross was not a tactic.

They were revelations.

They show us what God looks like when He stops hiding behind the projections of power-hungry men.

He looks like mercy that doesn’t negotiate.

Like justice that sits down before judging.

Like a Spirit who cries out in us, not just for us.

So, if you have felt suffocated by the God you were taught,

breathe.

If His voice sounds more like an accusation than an invitation,

silence that voice, For it is not His.

And if your heart still hopes there’s more,

you are not a heretic.

You are a seeker who is truly on the verge of transformation.

The Spirit is not offended by your honesty.

She waits for it.

Peace to your recoil.

Clarity to your ache.

A new name for the divine.

And the God who still kneels beside you.

Until we meet again,

In the name of the Breath who never leaves.