Santa Claus Theology
Making God’s Naughty or Nice List
Although Christians would reject the notion of Karma as a pagan Hindu philosophy, they have adopted their own version in which God is an old man in the sky granting or rejecting people’s requests based on their behavior. It’s what I call the Santa Claus Theology.
When confronted with this idea, many Christians would reject it. Yet it shows up in many subtle ways. I once heard the famous Reverend Jerry Fallwell claim that at the age of 70 he was blessed with good health because he tithed 30% to God. Apparently 30% was the going rate for good health. Of course, it wasn’t that many years later that he passed away from a heart attack.
Another way in which I experienced this merit-based theology was when my mom was going through cancer. Of all my extended family, the most distant one who never checked in to see how we were doing or offer any sort of words of comfort was my uncle who is a pastor. He remained silent and aloof. There were no prayers or words of comfort or concern. I attributed this to his belief that God rewards and punishes based on people’s worthiness. He had expressed this notion when his prized pick-up truck was totaled in an accident and he made sense of it by saying the truck was too important to him, and so God had to take it away.
This disturbing idea is one I have heard before among Christians. We were at times warned not to love something too much or God would take it away. I used to fear that I would lose a family member because they mattered too much to me. I think this troubling belief comes from the story of Abraham and his son Isaac; by far one of the most disturbing stories of the Old Testament. After waiting years for this promised child, God apparently became insecure that Abraham loved Isaac too much and therefore commanded him to sacrifice Isaac on the altar to God. Of course, at the last minute an angel intervenes and stops Abraham from actually killing Isaac. Abraham passed the “test.” But what if he hadn’t? What if he had told God no? Would God have then slain Isaac himself?
I was always bothered by that story. As a mother, if God or an angel appeared and told me to sacrifice my child, the answer would be “No.” And why does God need this outer proof of Abraham’s love and faith? Doesn’t God know all things and already know the thoughts and feelings of people? Why does he need dramatic displays as proof? I have at times wondered how throughout the Bible the Almighty creator can sometimes act like an insecure teenager in their first relationship.
But more to the original point, I think these stories reinforce the concept that God keeps score and rewards and punishes people based on their good deeds or lack of them. That belief can foster a very cruel kind of judgmental thinking. People going through tragedies are often then blamed for the misfortunes they face. It’s like in the book of Job, when Job’s friends come to visit him. At first they sit in silence, but then they start speaking. And of course, they blame Job. He has lost everything, so of course there must be sin in his life that he needs to repent from. It’s the only way they can make sense out of their apparently righteous friend facing so much tragedy and loss all at once.
From a psychological view, it is a defense mechanism. Tragedy and loss scare us all. When we see it happen to someone else we try to comfort ourselves with the thought that the other person must have somehow deserved it. If that’s true, then we don’t have to feel quite so bad for them or quite so afraid that the same thing could happen to us. Just be a really good person to ensure God’s blessing and protection. But like Job, sometimes tragedy and loss just happen with no logical explanation. And that is a terrifying reality we must all come to terms with if we are going to be people of compassion.
This Santa Claus theology is also what is known as the “health and wealth” or “prosperity gospel.” This idea that you can essentially manipulate God into blessing you. It was made very popular through books like “The Prayer of Jabez.” An entire book devoted to some very short verses in the Bible claiming that you can get God to bless you with wealth and prosperity by just asking. I imagine there is a particular way in which you must ask though, or the author wouldn’t need to write an entire book on the subject. Except of course that writing such a book was his path to wealth and prosperity. It’s amazing how much money you can make by promising the secret of wealth to other people. I would dare to guess that a large percentage of people who bought and read that book are no more wealthy now than they were before.
This concept extends beyond financial wealth as well. There is physical health of course, but also gaining other things that you want. For example, there was a trend among my singles group at church several years ago that you could eventually end your sad single state by taking a year off of dating and “dating God” instead for that year. This devotion to God and year of absolute purity and celibacy even of the mind was supposed to practically guarantee that when you had served your time the right partner would appear. It was an especially popular scheme for the young women who had their hearts set on a particular young man who had failed to take notice of them. But there were stern warnings before you started your year off of dating that if you backed out and started dating someone before the year was up, your relationship would suffer the consequences of your failure. It was a practice I did not join in since I wasn’t dating anyway, but it certainly caused some drama between the girls who stuck it for the whole year and those that did not.
Physical healing was another area where I saw people struggle a great deal with this attitude of earning God’s reward. After all, there are a lot of miraculous healings that take place throughout the Bible. However, in modern times these miraculous recoveries appear to be rather random and very hard to explain. My own mother recovered from cancer, but she also relied heavily on modern science and followed all the treatments recommended by her doctors. And there is random luck that no one can really explain. She fortunately found a stem cell donor who was a compatible and ultimately successful match. None of that in any way means that those who do not experience a “healing” or recovery are to blame for it. There are far too many different factors to take into account to assign credit or blame.
I remember a girl at the very conservative Christian college I attended. I didn’t know her well at all, but her story stayed with me and made me feel sad for her. She had cerebral palsy. It was a somewhat “mild” case I would say since she could walk and speak quite clearly. But she did have a noticeable limp that probably caused her discomfort. But the thing that made me sad about her story was her obsession with the idea that God needed to miraculously heal her in order to bring her father to conversion to Christianity from his Islamic faith. She was so sure that would happen and she faithfully went to so many healing services and prayer services. I didn’t stay in contact with her at all, but as far as I know, she never experienced a miraculous healing.
I guess this brings me to the question: “Does faith depend on healings, physical health, wealth, and general prosperity?” Or is faith the thing that gets you through when you do face loss? When your health fails? When something unimaginable happens, or you just don’t know how you will pay the bills next month? I would hope it’s not the first option. If we believe we can get whatever we want from God through being religious enough, we tend to lose both humility and compassion. We take credit for our own successes and blame everyone else for their struggles. I hope during this Christmas season, especially THIS Christmas of 2020, that we will choose to be people of compassion. That through this lonely pandemic Christmas we will have compassion on the lonely, the hurting, the financially struggling. I hope we will be more concerned with how to help others than with why something bad happened to someone. I would hope in general that would be our approach to people in pain or misfortune.
