c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

(UNDATED) A family outing isn’t exactly what my wife and I want this evening. The “family” part sounds great, but “outing” sounds like one thing too many.

But when our 8-year-old son voices disappointment, we listen.

Children, of course, don’t always need to get what they want. Too many children never hear the word “no.” Their whining and foot-stomping take charge of the family and render them selfish and weak adults.

Yet they do need to have their desires and opinions valued. Parenting, like the rest of life, is a matter of continually reconsidering.

An hour later we are driving north just as end-of-day sunshine turns normal greens to deep lushness. We find a town that presents a lovely vision of American life in 1930. After a peaceful dinner at a restaurant near the county courthouse, we walk and talk.

In the quiet of dusk, my son asks questions about nuclear warfare. I tell him what I know about Hiroshima, today’s more powerful weapons, radiation poisoning and “nuclear winter.”

I don’t know where his questions originate. But in answering them, I am moved to see how this fragile treasure called life could easily be blown away. None of this was in my mind when we set out on a summer’s drive.

Most of our divisions as Christians are about style or language. Most have to do with self-will and a fear of what might happen if we didn’t get our way. Most are small things made too large.

But there is one division that is profound: Does God change? Does God listen? Do our voices have an impact on what God does? Is God surprised by unfolding reality? Is God, like us, in the process of becoming?

Some say No. In their faith, God is unchanging, God knows all things before they happen, God has a plan, and our role as God’s children is to figure it out and obey God’s ancient words.

Some say, Yes, God does change. Our needs touch God’s heart, our questions give him pause, our failings require new responses.

When you strip away the tendency of any religion to defend its own culture and to affirm the social and moral views of its leading members, this question _ does God change? _ remains.

In considering the roles of women in church leadership, for example, there’s no escaping the patriarchal foundation of the Old Testament. Nor can we overlook the ambiguous way Jesus named 12 male disciples but also invited women into his inner circle, revealed his risen self to women, and sent them as evangelists.

When you cut through Southern Baptists’ macho bluster about daring to offend in pursuit of truth, you are left with a good question: Does the maleness of the Twelve continue Old Covenant attitudes and therefore remain normative? Or does Jesus’ whole ministry show God moving beyond patriarchal culture and establishing new patterns? Did Jesus reveal an ongoing evolution of the divine mind?

That is no small difference. It’s more than style or language. It’s more than one side being “Bible-believers” and the other “Bible-scoffers.”

If we insist on God’s immutability, questions like my son’s must be run through a sieve of ancient attitudes about warfare. Similarly, who preaches on Sunday gets resolved by an ancient hierarchy placing men in charge, and sexuality questions are referred to the rulings of ancient tribal chieftains.

If we believe that God changes and new realities require new responses, not only from us but from God, then Scripture reveals the trajectory of God’s changing nature.

The religious side of the Supreme Court’s ruling on school prayer emerges from this difference. The theocracy of ancient Israel blurred public and religious life. Faith, government and tribe swirled together. Jesus separated “Caesar’s things” and “God’s things.” He cleansed the temple but didn’t wage war on Rome.

Politicians and preachers will pounce on the Court’s perceived hostility toward religion. But that’s whining and foot-stomping. More serious believers on both sides of this issue will want to consider the deeper question: did God want one thing in an earlier era and a different thing now?

That is the larger question. Neither bluster nor scoffing addresses it.

DEA END EHRICH