“Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” I’m not sure how many times I’ve seen those words pop up on Facebook over the past few years. Typically it comes as a dismissive defense against any serious attempt to wrestle with the entanglement of faith and politics. It compartmentalizes the two, putting politics in one box and faith in another.

But is that was Jesus is saying? Is Jesus suggesting that we have a distinct spiritual, social, political, and work lives? Or have we taken a couple verses from a much larger story and incorrectly applied it to a single context?

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Is celebrating 500 years since Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church the celebration of an irrelevant reformation? While those with a vested interest in Luther and/or Protestantism will offer a quick and bold, “Of course it’s not irrelevant!” and will most likely add, “The Gospel is never irrelevant!” the lack of conversation I’m hearing about the anniversary in the broader culture makes me wonder if such a response lacks adequate reflection.

Below is an edited version of the opening section of my 2016 dissertation, Re-Storying God: Re-Imagining the God of the Bible and Re-Enchanting our Neo-Secular Selves. Hopefully, it will add some food for thought as we consider what might be an irrelevant Reformation.

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Uncontrollable faith … this is where I find myself after decades of hating God through fear, blame, and control.

As I explained in my Hating God post, hating God through control began my freshman year of high school. At the time, I was ready to check out of the church. That said, I really didn’t have any other place to go. I was an outcast at school, the magic of Boy Scouts vanished, and I didn’t have any other hobbies beyond video games. I was, in every way, lost.

Then a guy named Ken, who volunteered with my parents’ church’s youth group, noticed me. I can’t explain why, but somehow, this lost kid ended up on his radar and he made it his personal mission to save me. Ken was a bit wild and crazy. In my straight-laced world, he had the appeal of a rebel. But more than anything, he cared.

I wasn’t any good at basketball, but he used to drive miles out of his way to pick me up and drop me off for the church’s youth league games and practices. He did the same for other youth group events. Perhaps most importantly, he helped me connect with other youth. Before long, I had friends.

This created a new conundrum for me. I hated God, but all of my friends were connected to the church. How do you balance those two realities? For me, the answer was to control. I used my intellect and the discipline of theology to box in God. It started in high school and continued through undergrad. My Master of Divinity degree is descriptive as my life’s aim was mastering the divine.

It’s hard to identify when I stopped boxing in God. Perhaps in some ways, I have yet to. But here are a few key steps along the journey and a project to help all of us embrace an uncontrollable faith.

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