Summary of Chapter 20
The 20th 'lie' dealt with by Young is that 'God is a divine Santa Claus'. Some people, according to Young, have 'projected their notions about Santa Claus into their thinking about God'. Young adds another layer in suggesting that we think of Jesus as the nice, gift-giving Santa and the Father as the nasty Santa who keeps a record of all our wrongs. But the Father, Young insists, is not a different sort of Person than the Son. We would do better, when attempting to understand what God is like, to look at who we long to be (since we are made in God's image). We would do BEST to look at Jesus, Who is the human we (deep down) long to be.
Reaction
The idea that many of us think of God like we used to think of Santa Claus is certainly not novel, but Young does a good job of quickly explaining this particular theological projection. He is right that some pit the Father against the Son as if they have different character traits. Young is also correct to say that we should look toward Jesus if we want to get our theology right. He is the direct revelation of God. No objections here.
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