God-In-A-Box and the Arrogance of Certainty
(A Pause in the “Other Names for Logos” Series)
“Logos doesn’t belong to one faith tradition. And God has never fit in a box.”
One of the biggest problems with Christianity isn’t Christ—it’s the arrogance of thinking our tradition is superior to all others.
That posture—so common in both conservative and progressive Christian circles—shrinks the boundless mystery of the Divine into something small enough to manage. It puts God and Logos in a very small box. A Western-shaped box. A doctrinally sound, hermeneutically tidy, culturally approved, seminary-certified box.
But God is bigger than that.
Logos is older than that.
And there is no box large enough to hold them.
If you’ve been following my “Other Names for Logos” series, you already know where this is going. I’ve been exploring how the Divine Word—what John’s gospel calls Logos—echoes across cultures and languages long before Christianity arrived on the scene. Laozi called it Dao. The Vedas speak of Vak. The Hebrew prophets pointed to Chokhmah, Holy Wisdom, dancing at creation’s edge.
These aren’t just poetic parallels.
They’re fingerprints. Fractals. Echoes of the same sacred pulse.
Too many modern Christians—especially in the West—confuse the map with the territory. We mistake our inherited religion for the full revelation of God, as if the Eternal could be copyrighted, franchised, and fenced in. This is spiritual colonization disguised as orthodoxy. And it has cost us dearly.
It has cost us relationship with other faiths.
It has cost us intimacy with the Earth.
It has cost us the ability to hear Spirit speak through cultures and voices not our own.
It has even cost us Jesus—because when you put Logos in a box, you also put Christ there.
And eventually, you forget the box is made of your own fear.
This isn’t a call to throw out Christianity.
It is a call to root deeper than the fences.
To follow the Christ who breaks religious rules for the sake of love.
To listen for the Logos in places we were told not to look.
To admit that our tradition, while beautiful, is not the whole sky.
Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits.”
Not by their statements of faith.
Not by their ability to quote Paul.
Not by how many theological degrees they have.
But by the fruit they bear.
If someone from another tradition shows me love, compassion, truth, and justice—
I will call them kin.
Because Logos is speaking in them, too.
I’ll return to the “Other Names for Logos” series in the next post. But for today, I just wanted to pause and say this clearly:
We do not own the Divine.
We never have.
And it is a sacred gift to finally stop trying.
