Fitting a Square Peg God Into the Round Hole of Life

February 11, 2021

I have a confession to make.

Sometimes, I still consume Christian content.

Gasp! I know, right?

Every now and then I’ll listen to the podcast version of a sermon from my old church. Or, if I’m feeling especially nostalgic, I’ll play an old worship song that I used to like years ago. It still sounds good, but when it’s over, I can only shake my head and laugh.

There’s one particular podcast I listen to that’s a bit random for me. It’s a Christian podcast hosted by a woman that’s meant for other Christian women. I couldn’t be further from the target demographic.

The show is easy to listen to because the host and her guests are intelligent, well spoken, observant, analytical, and at times funny. They break down and discuss the struggles they have when it comes to life, their faith, and the Church.

The show fascinates me because they aren’t afraid to take the Church to task for many of the exact same things as non-believers:

• Poor or inappropriate sex education
• Ignoring or glossing over mental health issues
• Purity culture
• Self indulgent mission trips

The list goes on.

As a matter of fact, for the first half of the episode, the show sounds very much like a podcast run by people who have left the faith and deconverted and are now taking a critical look back at the Church.

But then, amazingly, in the second half of the show, they find a way to loop in God—the ultimate answer to explain away all the legitimate issues they raised in the first half of the show.

• “Yes, the Church needs to do a better job at preparing people for sex, and I pray that God will raise up some leaders to do just that.”
• “I know that God will carry me through my mental health struggles. I just need to remain faithful and pray.”
• “Purity culture is harmful, yes, but all girls should still remain virgins until they’re married.”
• “So many Christians make the mission trip all about themselves. I’ll be sure to not do that on my next five-day mission trip to Uganda where I’ll volunteer at an orphanage.”

They try very hard to fit a square peg God into the round hole of their lives.

Every time I listen to this podcast, I get very frustrated at hearing two intelligent, intuitive women go round and round in their conversation, making great points, and not realizing that if they simply removed God from the equation, everything would make a whole lot more sense.

Because when you insist on shoving a square peg God through the round hole of life, you never end up with any real answers. God can’t be blamed, of course, because he’s God. So what solutions are left?

“Pray and hope” is not my preferred strategy for dealing with serious issues.

It takes guts as a Christian to stand up and publicly discuss all the issues surrounding the Church and Church culture. Some Christians never get to that point. Either they bury their heads in the sand and refuse to admit there’s a problem or, if they see there’s a problem, they either keep quiet so they don’t rock the boat or don’t do enough to actually solve the problem.

If you’re going to have the guts, then eventually you need to go all the way. You need to call it like it is. You have to finally admit that something fishy is going on and consider the possibility that you’ve been misled.

I do predict that this woman—the podcast host—will eventually deconvert. The path she’s on just looks too similar to many deconversion stories I’ve heard in the past. The questions she’s asking sound all too familiar.

And when she does, I do expect her to release a podcast episode announcing that she’s no longer a Christian. She’s demonstrated tons of integrity up until this point, and I don’t see why that part of her personality would change after she leaves the faith.