c. 1997 religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee).

UNDATED _ A new organization,”The Committee for the Defense of a Responsible God,”needs to be established as soon as possible to preserve God’s integrity. There’s not a moment to lose because a mindless dumbing-down of God is currently taking place in the United States.

Not very long ago men and women painfully wrestled with serious questions about whether God existed. Always included in those intense debates were some carefully crafted philosophic”proofs”of God.

And if, through faith and reason, a person finally determined God exists, other questions had to be immediately confronted: what influence does God have upon the billions of people who live on earth? What does God demand of us, and we of God?

Is God the Force who created the world even as a watchmaker creates a watch, and then both of them let their creations run on their own? Or does God make an impact on every individual life _ whether lived in squalor or in wealth?

Again, not too long ago people struggled to reconcile a personal faith in God with the radical evil of the Holocaust. They vigorously debated the meaning of the oft-repeated affirmation that God was”present”at Auschwitz.

But because we now know that the Germans who ran the death camps prayed to God at church services, celebrated religious holidays in their homes, and taught their own children spiritual lessons, that affirmation of faith is not so simple.

And not too long ago, challenging and provocative theological terms such as”ultimate concern,””eclipse of God,””ground of being,””when bad things happen to good people,””religious realism,”and even”the death of God”sparked passionate debates about the nature of divinity.

There was a creative tension between belief and disbelief and many religious people perceived themselves as partners with God in healing a broken world.

But not anymore. In much of today’s America, such questions are no longer even discussed. There is little or no public debate about either God’s existence or deeds.

Instead, God is let off the hook too easily. Whatever happens to people, whether good or bad, is blithely explained as”God’s will.” When the McCaughey septuplets were recently born in Des Moines, Iowa, the entire event was universally termed a”miracle from God.”Maybe it was.

But if, sadly, one or all of the”magnificent seven”had died, I am certain we would have been told this, too, was the”will of God.”In effect, God is in a win-win situation. And human beings are simply passive observers. Whatever happens, God is always right. Perhaps.

But we should reach such a conclusion only after a long and painful personal quest to discover God’s meaning in human lives.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I read about the death of a St. Louis area woman, Jennifer Soshnik, who was killed at a service station while filling her car with gas. A 16-year-old driver lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a gasoline pump, sparking a blaze engulfing Soshnik in lethal flames.

Her needless death by fire was bad enough. But a few hours later I heard a caller on a radio talk show discuss the accident.”God wanted her in heaven more than on earth,”one caller said.”She’s better off now.” His comments were said in a comfortably assured manner, as if the caller truly knew what God does or does not want of Jennifer Soshnik. And I am equally convinced that if her life had been spared, that too would be blandly seen as the will of God.

What is missing in both the Iowa multiple birth story and the Missouri accident account is any attempt to grapple with the profound ambiguities and questions raised by both events.

When things go well, it is God’s doing, and when things do not go well, that, too, is God’s doing. This inane”dumbing-down”trivializes the most important questions a person can ask.

Despite our most fervent prayers, the questions addressed to God are never fully answered, yet we are never free from the obligation to ask them. This spiritual dilemma regarding God is, after all, the pain and joy of being fully human.

DEA END RUDIN