*tap tap tap* is this thing on?
Karen writes (or rather rants) on Imago Dei…
I originally posted this as a note because I’m long time reader, first time writer, at least in Substacklandia.
Listen, I don’t really care about your modifiers (are you LGBTQ+? Christian? Left? Right? Lost? an alien from an undisclosed planet? AWESOME! i’m glad you’re here!) but i do care about you and the people who live on this world.
A few years ago, I was challenged with a question. What is the cornerstone verse of the Bible? What verse sets up the theology for the rest of the Christian Scriptures? I had to defend my answer, which didn’t actually vary from this author’s point. Genesis 1:26-28 talks about God creating humans as image bearers and our role to “rule over the earth.” I specifically want to address Genesis 1:27:
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Some background: I was raised in small town Texas SBC church. My love of the Bible started early when I would get bored listening to sermons and would just read random parts of the Bible for fun. I had no clue what was happening, but I enjoyed the journey of reading it. This continued as I started paying attention to the Bible and learning from quality teachers. I hold the Bible in very high regard. However, I refuse to weaponize it in a way that takes the dignity and humanity away from anyone.
Ok, back to current Karen!
Lately, I’ve noticed a large portion of church attending people are unaware of what the Bible says or what it means. I’m not an expert by any means. In fact, the more I study it, the more I realize I don’t know anything, but I can be certain of this. All of humanity bears God’s image. In ancient societies, an “image” of a thing represented the power. So a king could have an “image” erected of himself, and that image would be a direct representation of his power. The bearer of the image was essentially the king’s ambassador and spoke on the king’s behalf. Do you see where this is going?
God created all of humanity as Image Bearers, to represent God to creation. The amazing thing is in the very beginning, God, too, walked around creation with the humans, existing on this plane with us. There’s a whole lot of imagery that I don’t get that I’ve only learned about partially through the wonderful people at The Bible Project. But you know what happened, right? The Accuser appears to the first humans and sows seeds of doubt. We started listening to not-God. We never lost the imago dei, though. We just were further flawed, missing the mark, not living in the way God created to live (fun fact: hamartia is translated sin in Greek and literally means to miss the mark as in archery). Whereas many will say humanity was cursed after the story of Adam and Eve, the first curses were to the serpent and to the ground. Work was not a curse. (fun fact: even the first human cursed, Cain, was done so in such a way that was still merciful. God still took care of Cain.)
Somewhere along the way, we humans claiming Christ have lost the plot.
Here’s my challenge for you:
How do you deprive humanity of their inherent imago dei? No one has lost that image of God, even the people who are parading around as federal agents and kidnapping humans off the streets.
How have you seen others deprive you of your inherent imago dei?
What would it look like to treat others in a way that values their inherent imago dei, but also challenges them to present God to the world in a way that restores humanity to the relationship we had in Eden? In other words, what does a restorative practice of honoring others, even ones we struggle to honor?
If you’ve made it this far, I’m proud of you. I hope I’ve taught or challenged something in you today. Reach out if you have questions or clarification. I’m hoping to make this a more regular thing.
God bless, truly,
Karen