Who is God?

On Tuesday night, one of my favorite shows, "Glee," did an episode focused on religion. That always makes me cringe, as a Christian, because most of the time the beliefs I hold so sacred are marginalized by those in the pop culture sphere. Though "Glee" was at times kinder than others have been, there were many moments that made me sad.

I was still thinking about it two days later when, on Thursday, I saw a USA Today headline that read "How America Sees God." Of course, 30 seconds and a $1 later, I was tearing into the article to see what it had to say. The article, covering the results of a nationwide survey, revealed that 9 out of 10 people say they believe in God, but the God they believe in is wildly disparate.

Perhaps the most saddening to me was that 24 percent of those surveyed believe in a distant God. That is a God that created the world and all its inhabitants and left us on our own. When you couple that with the five percent of people that don't believe in God, that means nearly 30 percent of Americans believe God has no role in our world today. Couple that with the 28 percent of people that believe in an Authoritative God — one that is actively judging us for our failings by bringing calamities on the world — and its no wonder that, as a culture, we're more lost than ever.

I guess it shouldn't be any surprise there is this much dissention about God, after all Christians can't even agree among themselves about the message we're to share with the world. It seems we spend more time in this country fighting among ourselves than spreading the Gospel — the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior and the one true path to salvation — than we do trying to reach people around us. That's why other countries are training missionaries to reach the lost in our own country.

Given the numbers in the survey about how we see God, we need the help.

I have long felt, watching and reviewing films, that as a society, if our art forms are any reflection of the mood of the nation, we are becoming more and more lost. When nearly 30 percent of people surveyed believe God has no role in the world today, you begin to understand the lack of direction. Couple that with the 21 percent of people surveyed who believe in a Critical God, one that will not intervene in this life, and you see that half the people surveyed in this country have no hope. Add in the people that believe all bad things happen as a result of God's judgement, and you have 78 percent of the people that don't think things will get any better and, in fact, believe things might get worse.

That is our challenge as Christians, but hopefully we know we don't have to take on that challenge alone.

"I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD watches over you— the LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore." — Psalm 121.