The Deity (aka the Old White Man in the Clouds™, aka God) has been mighty busy of late. Goda'mighty busy. Talking to His appointed oracles in the world, doncha know. To white men. Men like Himself, which is, after all, how we happen to know He is Himself and not Herself.As 2009 arrived, the Old Gent was, of course, intent as he always is to give His first hearing of the new year time to the Reverend Robertson in Virginia Beach, Virginia (http://video.google.com/videosearch?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=pat%20robertson%20predictions&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#). God spends quite a bit of his time in conferences with Pat at any moment in the year. But new year’s is a special time.
It’s a season in which the Deity chooses to open the secrets of the future™ to Rev. Robertson. Unfortunately for us, who would prefer to hear God’s word straight from the horse’s mouth with no interpretive screens, it appears that in these audiences with his Virginia oracle, God assumes the role of a doddering old gentleman—perhaps under the rubric of becoming all things to all men?—since Rev. Robertson’s usual mode of delivering his new year’s predictions requires him to issue disclaimers like, “If I heard correctly,” or, “If I understood right.”
Evidently when the Most High conferences with Reverend Robertson, He speaks in those maddening disconnected elliptical utterances so favored by the reminiscing elderly who are not quite there—in the same room with the rest of us. That befits the Deity, of course. One has to listen carefully, join the dots, and make inferences that are not directly spelled out in the meandering pronouncements.
And evidently Reverend Robertson does not always hear precisely, since he has made spectacularly off new year’s predictions in the past, including the submersion of the Pacific northwest by a tsunami due to that region’s tolerance of the gays. This year’s predictions are perhaps safer and more probable: recession, rising oil prices, wars and rumors of war.
Things are quite different when the Deity communes with another of his favored earthly embodiments, news commentator Mr. Tucker Carlson (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/01/when-tucker-car.html). In contrast to the maddeningly evasive way in which He reveals Himself to Mr. Robertson, when contacting Mr. Carlson, God speaks out loud and very, very clearly. Perhaps He even shouts, as His representatives on television and radio are wont to do. Thinking as He does so that Flannery O’Connor had it right, when she observed famously that if one wishes to reach the deaf, ONE SHOUTS. All things to all men, depending on what said men happen to need . . . . To the doddering, one becomes doddering; to the stolid, stolid.
Not only is God speaking to His divinely appointed spokesmen: he’s also showing his face to specially favored recipients of divine self-revelation. Quarterback Kurt Warner has favored us with a picture of God in this new year: “the old man,” “gray hair,” “long beard,” according to Warner (http://vodpod.com/watch/1275009-qb-kurt-warner-draws-his-god). Unfortunately, when Mr. Warner recently drew God the Father, he ended up inadvertently sketching Jesus instead—entirely understandable, given that Jesus is the “young man” and God the Father the “old man,” as Mr. Warner brightly informs us.
Why men, one wonders? Why white men? Why white men whose primary interest in religion seems to be in finding a God who looks, talks, thinks, and acts suspiciously like them, one asks as one ponders the surprisingly various yet predictably patriarchal ways in which God reveals Himself to his favored representatives in the world? To pastors and football players and television gurus—to those most likely to speak for God, since they are, as well all know, most like God, His best buddies and primary defenders in a world hellbent on going to the multicultural, gender-bending dogs.
To ask these questions is perhaps to answer them.
And thank God that Stephen Colbert is getting in on the act, with his new “Yahweh or No Way” segment: www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/215452/january-08-2009/yahweh-or-no-way---roland-burris. With all due respect, Mr. God, would you plea'sir spend more time talking to Mr. Colbert and a tad bit less communing with Rev. Robertson, Rev. Huckabee, Pope Benedict, and Rev. Warner in the coming year?
Some of us find You a little more believable, Sir, when Stephen Colbert speaks on your behalf.
