Once upon a time, people who didn’t believe in the kind of God that spoke through those obnoxious GodSpeaks.com billboards (“What part of ‘Thou shalt not…’ didn’t you understand?”) could still talk about God by not talking about God. Instead, they could talk about the “God-shaped hole” or vacuum or void that existed in the heart of our being. It’s a pretty good maneuver when you think about it, one that was used by such luminaries as Saint Augustine and Blaise Pascal. No need to believe in the existence of God to engage in Godtalk. One could have a perfectly serviceable theological discussion around the circumference of that “terrifying bottomless abyss opening up inside us which we would do anything to fill” as a former history professor of mine described it. In fact, “God-shaped hole” is such a perfectly adequate metaphor or trope or image—I’m not exactly sure what it is—that it’s even been used as a title for a novel and as the title for a pop song in a movie soundtrack. Wait a minute. Now I do know what it is. It’s a cliché.
And like all good clichés, this one has pretty much run its course. Why? Because with every passing moment, humanity is coming up with more and more and more information to stuff down that “terrifying bottomless abyss.” In fact, it’s been said that “by some estimates in just a few years we will reach a point where all the information on the Internet will double every 72 hours.” Which means that the big hole that needs to be filled in our lives is no longer shaped like the Deity Formerly Known as God. It’s shape like Google. And if anyone out there can tell me what a Google-shape hole looks like, I’ll send them an invitation to Spotify. (Actually, I do have a few invitations to Spotify if you’re interested!) Oh, and by the way, at the moment “Google-shaped hole” is just a baby cliché, only about 70 results show up on Google, as opposed to 875,000 results for “God-shaped hole.” So feel free to use it for awhile.
Anyhoo. What this all means for those of us in the religion business (or the “prayer trade” as Brother Cavil called it on Battlestar Galactica) is that offering to fill the “God-shaped hole” in people isn’t going to cut it anymore. The DFKAG is losing ground anyway (see “Science and religion: God didn’t make man; man made gods“). People may still be trying to make sense of it all, but the traditional answers found by visiting the “Church Around the Corner” (even the Unitarian Universalist church around the corner) aren’t going to help them. The sphere of information we’ve surrounded ourselves with is on the verge of being so mystifying and so complex that it would bake the cookies of even the greatest minds of the past like Augustine and Pascal. The good news is that maybe, just maybe, people seeking to fill that “Google-shaped hole” might want to unplug for awhile and engage in a good old fashion face-to-face conversation about life, the universe, and everything. So there still may be a place for religious communities after all. But we’ve got to be ready. And this article is a good place to start: “Theology and the Church After Google: How This New Age Will Change Christianity.” If you haven’t read it yet, do. Really.
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July 19, 2011 at 9:01 am
Robin Edgar
The term “God-shaped hole-in-the-sky” doesn’t* have *any* Google results yet, unless one removes the “scare quotes” (which Google does automatically now when it finds no results for a particular search term) in which case a comment that I left on UU seminarian Kim Hampton’s ‘East Of Midnight’ blog gets the number one Google result. 🙂
Here is an image of that “God-shaped hole-in-the-sky” BTW.
It really is “God shaped”, as in shaped by God. . .
I do like your “Deity Formerly Known as God” phraseology Phil, but see it from a particular perspective that has been shaped by U*Us. . . Unitarian Universalists have done an excellent job of rendering the word “God” all but completely meaningless in that it is by no means clear what a U*U is talking about when they use the word “God” these days.
Once upon a time the word “God” meant –
The omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Supreme Being aka Creator of the Universe known by any number of names in numerous world cultures.
Clearly a whole lot of U*Us, including numerous U*U clergy, are not talking about *that* deity, or indeed *any* deity. . . when they use the word “God” these days.
Forgive me for being obnoxious here Phil but I can’t help but wonder what part of –
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;
for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
U*Us fail*ed to understand? 🙂
It gets better though Phil. . .
One ostensibly “liberal Christian” U*U minister recently publicly acknowledged on her blog that she doesn’t know what she is talking about when she talks about God.
One down. . .
How many more U*U clergy to go?
You actually seem to be doing better than many. . .
* I guess that it will *now* though. . .
July 19, 2011 at 10:28 am
Phil on the Prairie
Thanks for the comment, Robin. Two thoughts: 1.) I don’t know what I’m talking about most of time, but I’m okay with that! and 2.) I’m not sure if this is Process Theology or Kurzweil’s Singularity or whatever, but I wonder if we might be in the middle of actually creating the Unnameable right now. If thought two makes no sense, please refer to thought one.
July 19, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Robin Edgar
1.) I don’t know what I’m talking about most of time, but I’m okay with that!
Is your congregation OK with that Phil? 😉
2.) I’m not sure if this is Process Theology or Kurzweil’s Singularity or whatever, but I wonder if we might be in the middle of actually creating the Unnameable right now.
I would say that we are part of the capital ‘P’ Process Phil but we did not create it. Didn’t Carl Jung once say that man is “the little god” of this world or something like that? Speaking of Carl Jung, and knowing what I know about synchronicity, I would suggest that “the Ghost” is in the Google machine. Some of the “meaningful coincidences” that happen in real time on the internet are quite extraordinary. Had a few interesting ones within the last week or two.
July 19, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Phil on the Prairie
Fortunately, I don’t have a congregation. I work with several, so no single one of them has to listen to my conjectures week after week. And I do agree that we are (individually and collectively) small letters caught up in Capital Letter Processes…Life, Being, Consciousness. So who’s to say what’s inside the machine. Thanks for your thoughts, Robin.
July 19, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Mark Erickson
Isn’t it amazing a Christian theologian came to the conclusion that “theology is about attempting to answer the Seven Core Christian Questions”? And that these questions have impressive-sounding names and centuries-old traditions? Why, we might just need a Christian theologian to help us! And it sure is convenient that “the inhabitants of the Google age may be more attuned to Jesus’ message, way of thinking, and way of living, than were many previous ages.” Theologians – Talkin’ Loud and Sayin’ Nothin’.
As for cliches, in the creative arts they are all bad. But they still have a role to play as idea summaries or short-cuts. My old football coach had a good saying: “The reason they are cliches is because they’re true!”
July 19, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Phil on the Prairie
Yeah, avoiding cliches would hobble our everyday language. I do sort of dislike it when the latest phrase gets picked up by media pundits and used as shorthand for complicated issues that probably need to be explored more deeply. But that’s more like trying to be hip or cool or something like that. As far as the article goes, it’s not surprising that a Christian theologian comes up with questions about Christian theology, etc. What interests me is the idea that “discussion of religious themes…will grow in intensity and urgency.” I think what constitutes religious themes needs to expand to include questions about what technology is doing to us a human beings. What are we gaining? What are we giving away? Stuff like that. Unitarian Universalism’s “free and responsible search for truth and meaning” makes room for those discussions. We need to be prepared to facilitate them.