God's Your Father, Not a Cool Parent

On church clothes, Marvel movies, and JFK

Dec 03, 2023

As the “church clothes” online discourse has spilled into week two, I wanted to spin off from the topic onto a different—yet related—issue that’s been brought to light in all the chatter.

One common point made by the pro-casual side was this: God is our Father, and even if a father is a very important man His children have a personal access to him that others don’t. They can come to speak to their father without appointment, in the middle of the night, while wearing pajamas. He does not require them to suit up if they want to address him.

This calls to mind the famous photo of John F. Kennedy Jr. playing in the Oval Office while his father worked.

Though his father was the world’s most important man, sitting in the world’s most important seat, he was allowed to play under the Resolute Desk in his pajamas. Similarly, our relationship with God can often be this personal and therefore informal. It’s an important point.

But imagine if the informality of that picture dictated the entirety of their father-son relationship.

Picture JFK Jr. dressed in his pajamas, crawling around and playing on the stage as his father was sworn in and gave his famous “Ask not…” inaugural speech. The only conclusion would be, “This guy doesn’t make his kid respect him at all.” Even the children of the most powerful men are expected to observe decorum depending on the time and place. They don’t get to show up to state dinners in shorts.

(Relatedly, the other famous photo of young JFK Jr., in which he was a sharply-dressed three year old standing to salute his father’s casket, perfectly illustrates this point: there are times when even one’s father deserves formality.)

We have to find balance in our walk with God. He is our Father, and He is the King of kings. Treating Him as only one of those two things skews our approach.

Hebrews brilliantly walks this tightrope. We’re told because of Jesus’ High Priestly work we can confidently approach the throne of grace (4:15-16) and we should not have the same terrorizing fear Israel felt when approaching Sinai (12:18-24). The Old Testament largely did not speak of God as Father, but we do.

However, the writer did not let that fact make the relationship casual. “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” (12:28-29).

We can approach Him confidently, because He is our Father and Jesus is our High Priest. At the same time, we must approach Him reverently and with awe, because He is God.

It’s the latter which is often missing in today’s rendering of God.

Think about it: do we do anything with reverence and awe anymore? Maybe our dress doesn’t have to reflect it (I think it should), but shouldn’t something? I guess you could say the few seconds of silence after the Lord’s Supper trays have been passed might count. Anything else?

In our age of “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship,” the holiness of God has been downplayed to highlight His accessibility. Jesus is often portrayed as desperate for us, just hoping we’ll give Him a chance. “He just wants a relationship with you, that’s all.” Thus, ideas like “let’s aim the sermon at the visitors” and “we have to consider what would make them comfortable” come to drive church decision-making.

While He does love us and want a relationship with us, it is always exclusively on His terms. God is not a “cool parent.”

Here’s something we need to understand: we live in a time of incredible cynicism toward relationship offers. There’s always a catch. Every “let’s get coffee” message from an old friend might have an MLM pitch attached. Every invitation to join a new social group might have membership fees behind it. We all say we want relationships, but we know we can’t trust most of them that come our way.

So, a church pushing a walk with God as pure relationship just looks like another sly attempt to boost their attendance and contribution numbers. Not only does it cut God short by presenting only part of His character—it doesn’t reach people where they are.

What people don’t have, however, is anything to inspire reverence and awe. Everything in our day is draped in irony, and nothing is to be taken all that seriously. We meme catastrophic wars. The climactic moment of every superhero movie is undermined by a pithy quip. We laugh at anybody who isn’t neurotically self-aware and accidentally lets a little unironic enthusiasm out here and there.

And then they go to church, and everybody just wants to keep it super chill, bro. It’s no wonder many seekers are gravitating toward the high church traditions of the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglicans.

Again, this isn’t an article about worship dress. Sure, I believe worship dress is one of the more obvious ways in which we could display some reverence and awe. If you don’t want to go that route, you don’t have to. But I hope you’ll consider just where we can reintroduce reverence and awe into our Sundays.

God is our Father, but He is not our “cool parent.” It’s time we stop treating Him like one.

Church Reset | Jack Wilkie

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