The Problem with Domesticating God

Why the Divine Does Not Belong to Us

The image accompanying this blog was important to me. It needed to reflect an image of God from my childhood. Similar images appeared on church bulletins, in pictures hanging in Sunday School rooms, hanging in homes, or depicted on Christmas cards.

As a child, this image was a tad scary, and this scary-looking image seemed to be everywhere. It would be years before I understood that viewing God as a wise old man sitting in heaven was an integral part of my indoctrination.

Now? It makes sense. What better way to keep people submissive than to instill an image in them of a man peering down from heaven, watching every action, hearing every thought…

and judging it all.

God’s gonna get ‘cha for that 🎶

There is a song from long ago by that title, and it goes:

God's gonna get 'cha for that
God's gonna get 'cha for that
There's no place to run and hide
For He knows where you're at

The song pokes fun at the notion by revealing the hypocrisy that in everyday life God has the ability to watch your every move. Still, it reflects a foundational aspect to this side of Christianity. God must be alive and active, angry yet loving, vengeful yet forgiving – all the characteristics that we experience as a child by those who have power over us.

But evangelical/conservative Christianity doesn’t stop there. God must be more than a father or wise counsel. He must be everything, everywhere and in all aspects of your life, including the bedroom.

A man. A father. A judge. A king. And yes a lover.

If you were raised in evangelical/conservative Christianity, you know these labels to be true.

The domestication of God is messy, confusing, and conflicting. This is intentional, and when you have deconstructed from this level of Christian indoctrination, it’s quite disturbing. Let’s unpack some of why the depiction of God as a man, a father, a judge, a king or a lover:

• Primes the compliant to remain in submission, especially young women, to see male power as divine.

• When every image of ultimate authority and goodness is male, women are conditioned to believe that proximity to white men validates them. I see this in progressive and deconstructing spaces as well.

• The father who disciplines, the pastor who leads, the husband who decides, the male savior who loves you more than anyone else ever could—these roles become not just relational but spiritual. Questioning them feels like questioning God.

• The introduction of Jesus as lover adds a layer of confusion. Young girls are taught to be “in love” with Jesus, to long for his approval the way one would long for romantic intimacy. This blurs the lines between love, control, sexuality, and salvation.

This is emotional and psychological conditioning. If male authority is always divine, then female autonomy is always suspect. It’s easy to see how this becomes spiritual manipulation dressed as devotion. It’s not just about imagery–it’s about control. If church leaders can convince you that men in your life reflect the nature and will of God, then it becomes not only reasonable but righteous to submit to them. And that’s how entire generations of women were taught to call spiritual abuse “faithfulness.”

This is why so many women feel a sense of guilt or loss when they begin to question patriarchy.

Domesticating God minimizes the mystery of the Holy.

When we domesticate God, we lose the holy. We strip away the awe. We reduce the infinite into something we can explain, package, and control, which is done often to justify our own power structures.

But the Divine was never meant to be tamed.

Even the most devout among us must admit: we understand very little about this being that some call God, some call Allah, some call the Divine, some call the Universe, and so on. But we can only accept our limited understanding of God if we are willing to sit at a table of spirituality that is big enough for human experiences and beliefs.

Sadly, rather than an inclusive faith and compassionate existence, many people believe that a rigid dogma somehow makes them more like their God, and that their God approves of spiritual gatekeeping.

So much of modern Christianity, especially the version steeped in patriarchal theology, insists otherwise. It proclaims certainty wrapped in male pronouns, rigid rules, and the assumption that God is just a bigger, better version of us. If we can love, then God just loves more.

This is superhero theology.

That was me once but no longer. I’m grateful to have deconstructed, but it took work to release God from rules and my limited understanding of spirituality.

Mystics and sages across time and tradition knew differently. They approached the Divine with humility, not certainty. They didn’t try to define God—they communed with mystery.

As one teacher once said: “The difference between you and God, in this mindset, is merely quantitative.” But the Divine is not just a more powerful human. The Divine is not even bound by our categories.

God simply… is.

“I am who I am.”

Reducing God into a singular image.

What if God is more?

What if God is not male?
Not Christian, or Buddhist or Muslim or Jewish?
Not white?
Not straight?
Not bound by binaries, titles, or belief systems?

Gandhi once said, “God has no religion.”

Mystics like Julian of Norwich reminded us:

“Our Savior is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come.”
“As truly as God is our Father, so truly God is our Mother.”

The Divine refuses to be boxed in. Refuses to be reduced to our limited understanding.

God is Black.
God is Female.
God is Gay.
God is Nonbinary.
God is Indigenous.
God is Disabled.
God is Trans.

God is all these and none of these.

To those who were told they do not reflect the Divine image—because of your gender, your sexuality, your race, your ethnicity, your body, your soul—you are not outside the reach of the Holy.

You are the image of the Holy.

You are Beloved.

May we stop taming God.
May we stop weaponizing Mystery.
May we let wonder return to our faith, our spirituality, and our seeking.

And may we find our full and sacred selves inside that wonder.