The Voice of God
reflections on Liz Charlotte Grant's forthcoming book 'Knock at the Sky'
Everything depends upon the voice of God. Still or small, the thunder in the cloud or the quiet in the center of the gale, a donkey’s haw or a finger tracing the wall: the Voice needs no invitation. God always seeks out first contact (p. 5)
My friend
told me a while back that the idea (or one of the ideas) for her forthcoming book Knock at the Sky began with a question. And that question was “what does the voice of God sound like?” Liz’s curiosity about the voice of God launched her into midrash and lore, scholarship and century-spanning theology exploring the first book of the Hebrew Bible where God speaks. Liz points out that a talking God is a God with a throat. God’s voice hovers, beckons, blesses, condemns. It’s also a voice most of us in this modern age would call “silent”—we technologically-minded creatures so far removed from an ancient age when God presumably pulsed and walked and breathed and talked.The subtitle for Liz’s brilliant debut is “seeking God in Genesis after losing faith in the Bible.” And I don’t know about you, but my faith in scripture has been slipping for years. At least my faith in inerrancy, a “plain reading,” and a “Biblical lens.” When my firm foundation eroded, I was left skeptical of this God of the Hebrew Bible who I now saw as cruel, hostile, vengeful, and violent. And the early patriarchs, the supposed “great men of faith” I saw as complicit in a wrathful deity’s colonization of oppressed civilizations. John Piper, afterall, infamously said about the Old Testament slaughter of Cannanite women and children, “It’s right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.”
A “plain reading” meant we accepted the English-translated text as “clear” and un-nuanced, that we excused the brutal passages, that we called God’s violence justified. We didn’t consider that (as Tim Mackey of The Bible Project says) these ancient texts were written to a particular people at a particular time by humans convinced that their violence was God-ordained. These complications, the barriers between an ancient text and a modern people, are addressed in Liz’s first (how many times can I say beautiful?) chapter: “First Contact.”
Liz writes, “We are separated by culture and language and geography. A twenty-first century middle-class American is not the intended audience for the book of Genesis. We know this, theoretically, but the near translation does not make remembering easy. It’s likely, then, that purity of understanding may be out of reach for us” (page 11).
But, perhaps, “purity of understanding” was never the intent. As the church has divided over textual interpretations, as modern ex-evangelicals have deconstructed and abandoned the concept of “Biblical inerrancy,” it's clear that little about scripture is actually clear. And that to approach it as such, leads to fundamentalism and abuse-in-God’s-name. What if the “central pursuit of humankind (p. 11)” isn’t blind belief or uncritical reading but wrestling, wandering, exploring, “knocking at the sky”?
There’s much I want to tell you about this beautiful, gentle, incredibly well-researched book by my dear friend Liz. But perhaps the aspect I appreciate the most, that is absolutely essential in ongoing spiritual formation, is reading far, far, far beyond the confines of white, male, evangelicalism. As someone who once only ever read white male voices, I was stunted in my approach to and understanding of scripture. It is vital that we read scholars, thinkers, artists, and theologians of marginalized identities. Throughout this work in “seeking God in Genesis,” Liz consults midrash—a Jewish method of interpretation that welcomes and (even) requires questions and imagination to “fill in the textual gaps.” Her own scholarship is robust, citing liberationist, womanist, feminist, indigenous, and queer perspectives and research. Incorporated throughout are stunning stories of science, art, and bits of memoir that make this work not just well-researched but story-driven, contemplative, and hospitable to every reader.
It’s important to note Liz’s gentleness. She does not mock literalism or the cultural norms that have formed us in our particular beliefs. She relates her own stories and background, offers a sense of me-too-ness for every reader wherever they’re at. Still, she is not afraid to critique, to call out the instances in scripture that are confusing and downright unjust, to make space for the great mystery that still exists between a once vocal God and an increasingly (or seemingly) silent one.
Liz writes, “Reading the scriptures requires attention and spaciousness. Reading the words of God responsibly requires a willingness to learn we were wrong. Scripture has the effect of widening our insides. It requires both the humility to learn, interpret, and explore, and the conviction to settle lightly” (p. 109).
My earliest years of formation were guided by male interpretation. I never heard a woman pastor, theologian, or scholar referenced from the pulpit. It matters that countless of us came to understand scripture through lenses of the most socially powerful, the presumed patriarchs of our modern era–the celebrity preachers (like John Piper) and the 19th century slave-holding theologians like Jonathan Edwards. We were offered an angry God, a wrathful God, a God who dictated male authority and female submission, an inerrant text where every violent act stemmed from God’s angry hands. And we were supposed to praise this God, worship this God, thank this God for saving us from the hell he’d essentially created. Liberation theologians don’t talk about God like this. Neither do indigenous theologians or womanist theologians. Because they’ve known suffering, have experienced marginalization and condemnation, and the only hope divinity can offer is a voice of love and liberation.
Throughout this book, Liz pushes beyond the boundaries of a white-washed God, a white, male God with an Adam's apple, and a literal throat. She explores stories of wonder and awe that stoke spiritual, metaphysical questions. God is simply the word we use to describe the ethereal, the indescribable. But we can sense this presence, we can know Them in the tangible if only we would move beyond the literal and dare to knock at the sky.
Liz writes, “God is a breath, a cloud, a dream; God is also a bicep pinning Jacob to the dirt. God is a womb, God is a ram, God is a limp. Who is God? Who can say?...Each generation must answer for themselves the questions of existence: Where do humans come from, and where are we going? Why are we here? Why am I here? What does a single life mean? We travel in loops of conflict, tragedy, and beauty, requiring the intercession of Divinity and a transcendent story to make meaning of our short, strange lives. Our ancestors may have successfully pinned God down in their era, and still, the next generation must wrestle God anew” (p. 196-197).
Knock at the Sky releases on January 7, 2025. Pre-order here and be sure to follow Liz on Substack and Instagram!
Thank you for sharing. I want to read this. You and I grew in a very similar environment. Point for point I was following you. 🧡
Aw, friend. Love you.