How can a loving God ... ?

How often have you heard -- or even asked -- a question that challenges a life situation that begins with those words?

How can a loving God allow suffering?
How can a loving God let children starve?
How can a loving God allow injustice?
How can a loving God condemn people to eternal hell?
How can a loving God ... ?

Lately, I've been asking myself similar questions.
How can people that claim to follow a loving God hate so many people?
How can people that claim to follow a loving God cause so much injustice?
How can people that claim to follow a loving God support causes or policies that oppress others?
How can people that claim to follow a loving God be so fearful of everyone that is different from them?
How can people that claim to follow a loving God be such assholes all of the time?

If you follow the news around religious circles, there seems to be a lot of high profile religious leaders with some pretty low profile moral character. Maybe it has to do with the axiom - power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
 
Are there good religious leaders?
I'm sure there are. I'm also reasonably sure you'll never hear about them because they tend to take on more of a humble servant role than an elevate-myself-to-an-idol/I'm-the-leader kind of role like most pastors seem to do. It's no wonder that so many people are leaving churches these days.

I get the whole religious deconstruction thing. I never really cared for the term - deconstruction, but I'm beginning to see how it fits. Sometimes it is very necessary to take apart what you have believed in order to find out what the foundations of that belief really look like. The thing that concerns me the most about the whole deconstruction movement is that many people seem to walk away from more than church and religion, they tend to also walk away from God.
I have to admit - I'm a little torn between allowing them to walk that path on their own and wanting to guide them back towards the path that I am walking. I am learning that my path is my path. Others are welcome to join me and walk with me for part of the journey, but in the end, we each find our path and connection to God.
Yeah, I know - that's heresy to my old way of thinking. My connection to God is still the person of Jesus. I still believe that Jesus was and is divinely God in human form. If you want me to tell you how to connect to God, I'm probably going to take you on a journey that goes through Jesus, the Christ. It's the way I know -- at least it's the path I'm on. I am a Christian - a Christ follower. 
I am a much different Christian from what I used to be. I no longer feel that I need to defend God, support God, or help God. A god that needs me for those things is no God.

The Bible says that God created humanity in the image of God.
Maybe it's also true that we each create and worship a god of our own imagination; one that we've created to be like us.

John