To a lot of Christians, God is just a genie who responds to THEIR invocation of magic words. I used to give people the benefit of the doubt. I thought that they must have a more sophisticated or nuanced belief system, but, like me, could only express things through the insufficient tools of human language. But no, people are who they seem to be. The capricious and arbitrary God they invoke is the one they believe in.
When I was a kid an evangelical lady across the street said God told her to run hot water down the drain when it was clogged with grease and lo and behold, it drained!
Praise be to God the Plumber, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit!
To a lot of Christians, God is just a genie who responds to THEIR invocation of magic words. I used to give people the benefit of the doubt. I thought that they must have a more sophisticated or nuanced belief system, but, like me, could only express things through the insufficient tools of human language. But no, people are who they seem to be. The capricious and arbitrary God they invoke is the one they believe in.
When I was a kid an evangelical lady across the street said God told her to run hot water down the drain when it was clogged with grease and lo and behold, it drained!
Praise be to God the Plumber, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit!
"Jesus in the sky with diamonds": the motto of Prosperity Theology
The late Prosperity Gospel preacher Norman Vincent Peale has a lot to answer for.