mystery which for endless ages has been kept secret” (Romans 16:25–27). And a
well-kept secret it still remains for most Christians.
As St. Augustine would courageously put it in his Retractions: “For what is
now called the Christian religion existed even among the ancients and was not
lacking from the beginning of the human race.”*4 Think about that: Were
Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, Mayans and Babylonians, African and Asian
civilizations, and the endless Native peoples on all continents and isolated
islands for millennia just throwaways or dress rehearsals for “us”? Is God really
that ineffective, boring, and stingy? Does the Almighty One operate from a
scarcity model of love and forgiveness? Did the Divinity need to wait for Ethnic
Orthodox, Roman Catholics, European Protestants, and American Evangelicals
to appear before the divine love affair could begin? I cannot imagine!
Creation exists first of all for its own good sake; second to show forth God’s
goodness, diversity, and beneficence; and then for humans’ appropriate use. Our
small, scarcity-based worldview is the real aberration here, and I believe it has
largely contributed to the rise of atheism and the “practical atheism” that is the
actual operative religion of most Western countries today. The God we’ve been
presenting people with is just too small and too stingy for a big-hearted person
to trust or to love back.